ESA Rosetta, news, updates and discussion Options

[Paolo]

An article about ESA's Standard Radiation Environment Monitor instruments, one of which is flying on Rosetta

[elakdawalla]

Saw this interesting item in the Planetary Exploration Newsletter, but before you get excited, there is no OSIRIS data at all released yet (nor VIRTIS, either).

[NASA] PDS SMALL BODIES NODE AND ESA PLANETARY SCIENCE ARCHIVE ANNOUNCE RELEASE OF ROSETTA ORBITER DATA

Small Bodies Node (SBN) of the NASA Planetary Data System and ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA) are pleased to announce release of the data of Rosetta mission (orbiter instruments). The release contains the data acquired before the asteroid Steins flyby, i.e. calibration, commissioning, Earth swingby, and cruise (including some observations of comet 9P/Tempel 1) data.

The data can be seen at and downloaded from the PDS SBN website: http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/missions/rosetta/

and from the PSA ftp site: ftp://psa.esac.esa.int/pub/mirror/INTERNA...OSETTA-MISSION/

The sites don't seem to suggest that they'll be archiving Navcam data at all -- I wonder if ESA has any plans to release that? I'll have to ask.

[djellison]

I asked via Twitter and it was a 'We'll ask' . Sadly nothing from the lander instruments either.

[Paolo]

Rosetta developed a leak in the attitude control system fuel lines
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=47733
but controllers are confident that it should not impact the mission at C-G...

[nprev]

Unwelcome news. Last thing we want to see is a repeat (in some respects) of the Hayabusa drama.

[Explorer1]

The rest of the mission manoeuvres will be performed at low pressure, with lower but acceptable efficiency. No impact on the comet science operations is expected and in particular the date for lander delivery is kept within the originally planned window.

(My bolding.)

Well for now at least, it looks like they have a handle on it.

[elakdawalla]

Saw some Lutetia spectra this morning -- it is only slightly red. I read numbers off the I/F graphs like 0.09 in blue and 0.95 to 0.1 in red wavelengths. Steins was shown in a color combo to be much redder but I didn't see any Steins spectra; there must be some in literature by now.

[Paolo]

Last March Rosetta was used to observe the asteroid collision in the asteroid belt that formed "comet" P/2010 A2
observations by Rosetta are reported in the latest issue of Nature (you need a subscription to access the paper) and are summarized on the Sky & Telescope website

images are available on Nature website: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/...re09453_F1.html
and on ESA's website: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=47829

[Paolo]

The Nature paper on Rosetta observations of "comet" 2010 A2 plus its supporting materials and images are now available free on arXiv
A collision in 2009 as the origin of the debris trail of asteroid P/2010 A2

[centsworth_II]

"Good Night Rosetta, Sleep Tight!"
Astrium systems engineer Alois Eibner will send the last radio command (for the time being) to the space probe on Wednesday 8 June 2011.

...During the 32 months of deep sleep, the probe, weighing approximately three tons, will be largely on its own. Radio contact will no longer be possible, as there is not enough solar energy for all on-board systems during this phase. Never before has a solar-powered space vehicle ventured into these depth of space, further away from the Sun than the planet Jupiter. Rosetta has to take that risk in order to reach the comet.

To make sure the probe is ‘wide awake’ when it reaches its destination, the engineers will set the ‘onboard’ alarm. A clock with triple redundancy ...

Hah! I bet some on this forum are familiar with the old "triple redundancy" alarm trick!

[Explorer1]

I've been wondering for quite a while, how far will Rosetta be from the sun at aphelion? The animation on their page says the orbit of Jupiter (!) around 2012 but isn't really a precise number. Will it actually cross the orbit? That would be a first for solar powered spacecraft, correct?

[centsworth_II]

"Rosetta reaches a maximum distance of approximately 800 million kilometres from the Sun and about 950 million kilometres from the Earth.
It will be the first time a solar-powered probe has ever travelled such distances."


Jupiter
Perihelion (closest)
Metric: 740,679,835 km
English: 460,237,112 miles

Aphelion (farthest)
Metric: 816,001,807 km
English: 507,040,015 miles

[Paolo]

I have seen an aphelion of 5.09 AU mentioned somewhere

[MahFL]

What would darn scary if it woke up and it was revieled two clocks had failed......
32 months asleep sounds pretty scary.

[Paolo]

As Rosetta is put into hibernation, the first images of its distant target are released