Updates Rosetta Mission News

[orb]

The Planetary Society Blog: At last: Rosetta's Mars flyby photos have been released!

 

[Notebook]

Old data from the Lutetia fly-by in July 2010.

This spectacular movie shows a sequence of images snapped by Rosetta as it flew past the main-belt asteroid on 10 July 2010.

The sequence begins nine and a half hours before Rosetta made its closest pass, when the asteroid still appeared like a distant tumbling speck seen from a distance of 500 000 km.

Did a search for this in the thread, and I don't think its been here before:
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMXCODXR3H_index_0.html

N.

 

[orb]

ESA: Rosetta: 100 days to wake-up:

11 October 2013

ESA’s comet-chasing mission Rosetta will wake up in 100 days’ time from deep-space hibernation to reach the destination it has been cruising towards for a decade.

{...}

Rosetta’s internal alarm clock is set for 10:00 GMT on 20 January 2014.

Once it wakes up, Rosetta will first warm up its navigation instruments and then it must stop spinning to point its main antenna at Earth, to let the ground team know it is still alive.

“We don’t know exactly at what time Rosetta will make first contact with Earth, but we don’t expect it to be before about 17:45 GMT on the same day,” says Fred Jansen, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager.

“We are very excited to have this important milestone in sight, but we will be anxious to assess the health of the spacecraft after Rosetta has spent nearly 10 years in space.”

After wake-up, Rosetta will still be about 9 million km from the comet. As it moves closer, the 11 instruments on the orbiter and 10 on the lander will be turned on and checked.

In early May, Rosetta will be 2 million km from its target, and towards the end of May it will execute a major manoeuvre to line up for rendezvous with the comet in August.

The first images of a distant 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko are expected in May, which will dramatically improve calculations of the comet’s position and orbit.

Closer in, Rosetta will take thousands of images that will provide further details of the comet’s major landmarks, its rotation speed and spin axis orientation.

{...}

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oQe-MTUpaY"]Rosetta's twelve-year journey in space - YouTube[/ame]

SpaceRef: Comet-Chasing Rosetta to Wake-up for Mission

 

[Unstung]

A LEGO Rosetta!

ESA: "ESA's Rosetta comet-chaser goes LEGO®".

Discovery News: "Asteroid Mission Modeled with LEGOs".

It's a few years old, but the second link contained this informative video for anybody who wants to know more about the lander that is now broken:

Using the Wayback Machine:

Whenever chronic nerd-gassers gather to rip into the science of the blockbuster film, Armageddon, the conversation inevitably turns to the topic of how Bruce Willis and his fellow reluctant astronauts couldn't possibly have landed on that killer asteroid making a beeline for Earth -- at least not as depicted in the film.

It's not a simple matter to land on a small-ish object hurtling through space at very high speed.

But the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft is going to have to pull off a similar feat to land on its target comet, affectionately known as Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Given the complexity of the task, a few years ago, ESA space scientist Detlef Koschny created a little model of the Rosetta spacecraft out of LEGOs to help everyone visualize the planned flight path during meetings.

Never underestimate the appeal of LEGOs: word spread about the model, and soon everyone wanted their own personal mini-Rosetta made of LEGOS.

And now everyone can have a mini-LEGO Rosetta, because the ESA just announced the release of a LEGO high-fidelity Rosetta Lander Education Kit, based on Koschny's original design -- and there are even a few moving parts to help simulate the spacecraft's unique comet landing system that can be controlled by a simple home computer.

The kits were tested earlier this week by engineering and art students at the University of Rome -- who learned a bit about comets, Rosetta and the ESA's mission in the process. I'll let Koschny explain the rationale behind the Rosetta mission:

"Chasing comets allows us to look back into the history of our Solar System. Comets and asteroids represent the leftovers from which the planets of our Solar System formed. Understanding their composition will teach us about how our own Earth came into being and the ingredients that allowed the formation of life."

Even though Rosetta launched in 2004, it's a long journey into deep space to intersect the comet's path. That historic meeting between spacecraft and comet is not slated to happen until November 2014. Then comes the hard part: landing on a moving comet.

The Rosetta craft's Philae little refrigerator-sized lab has landing gear designed just for that purpose. First, it will literally "harpoon" the comet. Then, to keep the spacecraft from just bouncing off the comet in low gravity, its legs have been outfitted with "ice screws" (comets are dirty ice balls, or icy dirt balls, depending on which astronomer you ask) capable of drilling into the comet, anchoring the craft in place. A small rocket engine will fire as needed to hold the lander in position while all this is going on.

And then Rosetta can get on with its primary mission: getting up close and personal with Comet 67P, by collecting data on its composition. Hopefully we'll learn more about what little comets are made of -- and possibly even gain a bit more insight into Einstein's theory of relativity.

While we're waiting, there are LEGO Rosetta kits for us to play with.

I found the video here and wondered whether it was already posted.

 

[IronRain]

Visualisation of the deployment of the Philae lander from Rosetta at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014. Rosetta will come to within 2.5 km of the comet's surface to deploy Philae, which will then take around 2 hours to reach the surface. Because of the comet's extremely low gravity, a landing gear will absorb the small forces occurring during landing while ice screws in the probe's feet and a harpoon system will lock the probe to the surface. At the same time a thruster on top of the lander will push it down to counteract the impulse of the harpoon imparted in the opposite direction. Once it is anchored to the comet, the lander will begin its primary science mission, based on its 64-hour initial battery lifetime. Then it will use solar cells to recharge and attempt to operate for several further weeks to months, depending on the activity of the comet and how quickly the solar cells are covered in dust.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Hey wake up!

 

[kuddel]

Sweet!

 

[Ripley]

 

[orb]

Rosetta wake up event webcast is starting at ESA Web TV.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Hey wake up!

#WakeUpRosetta -- Once upon a time...

We shouldn't anthropomorphize space probes; they hate it when we do that :lol:

Hail Rosetta!

 

[C3PO]

We shouldn't anthropomorphize space probes; they hate it when we do that :lol:

CG phone home?

 

[Urwumpe]

@Rosetta: WAKE UP!


.......

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

As someone else said, this must be the most stared-at spectrum analyzer in the history of physics! 11000+ viewers looking for that spike in the middle...... :shifty:

And to increase the chances of finding the signal on the first try I have my Orbiter 2010 install running right now with Rosetta orbiting comet 67P.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Good morning Ms. (?) Rosetta!

 

[Urwumpe]

Rosetta is back online, the antenna points to Earth again!

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Hooray!

 

[kuddel]

@Rosetta: "Hi there! How are you?..long time no hear "

 

[martins]

How will they keep Rosetta entertained until August so she won't fall asleep again before the encounter with 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko?

 

[MattBaker]

Checking the instruments, preparing the spacecraft for this mission phase, beginning to observe the comet in May, making a course correction for the final rendezvous.

Or deep space coffee, however that works.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Deep Space Coffee...