A Mars Odyssey

September 5, 2008, will be ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft’s big day—meeting the asteroid 2687 Steins, with the doors open to all media by the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, in order for the public to be able to participate in the first images and results on Saturday, September 6 at 12:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time).

With the asteroid being Rosetta’s “first” nominal scientific target, it will rendezvous in the first incursion course in the asteroid belt—located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter—on its way to the comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This study is considered highly important as it represents a “sample of Solar System material” at the different stages of evolution, which is considered a key to understanding the origin of Earth and the universe, with Stein possibly being an “evolving asteroid” which means it may be part of another planet body.

The closest location that Rosetta will have to the asteroid is from a distance of 800 km at 20:58 CEST, during which there will be no communication between the Rosetta and Earth until 22:23 CEST. But with the Rosetta being the first step toward the European venture into studies of asteroids and comets, the images coming down on Saturday and Sunday will be considered their new frontier. The reason is because asteroid Steins is a rareee E-type asteroid, with many clues about planetary formations. Steins is composed of mainly silicates and basalts, with unknown properties, which is why it was one of two asteroids chosen by ESA to be studied.

ROSETTA Agenda by ESA:

Rosetta Steins Fly-By
Doors open to the media
5 September 2008, 18:00, Building K
ESA-ESOC
Robert-Bosch Strasse 5, 64293 Darmstadt, Germany

18:00 - Doors open
18:00 – 19:00 Interview opportunities
19:00 – 20:15 Buffet dinner
20:15 – 20:30 The Steins Fly-By, Introduction by Paolo Ferri, Head of Solar and Planetary Missions Division (Mission Operations Dept.), ESA
The crucial role of Flight Dynamics, by Trevor Morley, Rosetta Flight Dynamics Team, ESA
20:30 – 21:00 Live from Rosetta’s control room (loss of telemetry signal at 20:47)
22:23 - First telemetry on ground: signal of successful fly-by
23:00 - End of event

Rosetta Steins Fly-By Press Conference
6 September 2008, 12:00, Building D
ESA-ESOC
Robert-Bosch Strasse 5, 64293 Darmstadt, Germany

11:00 - Doors open
12:00 - Welcome and introduction, by David Southwood, Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, ESA
12:10 - Rosetta: the status of the mission, by Gerhard Schwehm, Rosetta Mission Manager & Head of Solar System Science Operations Division, ESA
12:20 - Rosetta and the study of asteroids, by Rita Schulz, Rosetta Project Scientist, ESA
12:30 - The fly-by of Steins – stretching Rosetta’s limits, by Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta Spacecraft Operations Manager, ESA
12:40 - Steins: first images and results, by Uwe Keller, OSIRIS camera Principal Investigator, Max Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
12:50 - ESA’s plans for asteroid and space debris monitoring, by Gaele Winters, Director of Operations and Infrastructure, ESA
13:00 - Questions & Answers session
13:20 - Interview opportunities
15:00 - End of event

UNIQUE NEWS:

PARIS - French scientists have devised a way of using particle accelerators to authenticate vintage wines, one of France’s top research bodies said this week.

A particle accelerator’s ion beams are focused on a wine bottle to determine the age of the bottle’s glass, which provides a date for the vintage of the wine inside. Particle accelerators take a particle, such as an electron, speed it up to near the speed of light and smash it into an atom to discover its internal workings.

The new test extends existing radioactivity tests on the actual wine itself, which are currently incapable of identifying vintages prior to 1950.

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