Awakening of the Rosetta
The Rosetta comet chaser has recently been awoken for its encounter with the oncoming asteroid. 2867 Steins on September 5, 2008. Previously launched on February 2004, the final destination of the Rosetta will be 2014, after traveling 6500 million km. Close to the Sun, the distance will be about 150 million km, the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. The journey began with an Ariane-5 launching from Kourou in French Guiana, with the three ton spacecraft inserted into a parking orbit before going on its merry way with lengthy periods of inactivity combined with short spells of intense activity with its encounters with Mars, Earth and asteroids.
Already swinging by Earth twice and Mars once, the Rosetta has performed gravity-assist maneuvers to give it the necessary boost for its journey continuation. November 9th of this coming fall will be its third and final Earth-swing. Part of its schedule is to fly by two asteroids, studying them with the 2687 Steins in September of 2008 the first one, and the 21 Lutetia in June o f 2010. By the time it gets to the Steins, the Rosetta will have traveled about 3700 million km.
Last fall in November was the Rosetta’s third major step to comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko of its ten-year journey to meet it. When it swung by Earth, the spacecraft gained adequate energy from Earth’s gravity to save fuel for later on. The speed of the Rosetta when it swung by Earth on November 13, 2007 was 45,000 km/h relative to Earth. At that time, the experiments for both the orbiter and the Philae lander were activates for calibration, science measurements and imaging. The Rosetta was marked for a 12 year mission, one of the greatest challenges of the mission.
According to NASA, the accomplishments of the Rosetta mission are tri-fold: to study the origin of comets, the relationship between interstellar material and commentary material, and its implications with regard to the origin of the Solar System:
• Global characterization of the nucleus, determination of dynamic properties, surface morphology and composition;
• Determination of the chemical, mineralogical and isotopic compositions of volatiles and refractories in a cometary nucleus;
• Determination of the physical properties and interrelation of volatiles and refractories in a cometary nucleus;
• Study of the development of cometary activity and the processes in the surface layer of the nucleus and the inner coma (dust/gas interaction);
• Global characterization of asteroids, including determination of dynamic properties, surface morphology and composition.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 5:25 am and is filed under Mission History, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
