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paxdan
Well Rosetta isn't going to get to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Chury) till 2014, but it's not to early to set up a thread. There are a bunch of earth fly-bys, a Mars encounter at 200km in 2007 and a few asteriod passes. Not to mention the mission to land on the comet itself.

Only another nine and a half years to go.
spaceffm
Wow, i did not know that there will be a Mars Flyby.
Interesting...
Sunspot
Also, I believe they will be observing Comet Tempel 1 during the Deep Impact encounter.
centsworth_II
QUOTE (spaceffm @ Apr 15 2005, 03:02 PM)
Wow, i did not know that there will be a Mars Flyby.
Interesting...
*


Rosetta will be able to add to the information on Mars methane/formaldehyde, according to this abstract (pdf file).

http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU05/04196/EGU05-J-04196.pdf
The Mars flyby of Rosetta: an opportunity for atmospheric sounding
"It will be able to search for other minor species (CH4, H2CO...) and to study possible local variations..."
paxdan
Here is a nice self-portrait of the back of one of rosetta's solar pannels taken by one of the 6 micro cameras on the Philae lander. Looks like the pictures of the surface from the lander are gonna be sweet.
DEChengst
For those that understand German this site has lots of info about the Rosetta mission:

http://www.bernd-leitenberger.de/rosetta.html
http://www.bernd-leitenberger.de/philae.html
Decepticon
A few asteroid passes!

Great news. Wonder which ones???


QUOTE (paxdan @ Apr 15 2005, 03:20 AM)
Well Rosetta isn't going to get to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Chury) till 2014, but it's not to early to set up a thread. There are a bunch of earth fly-bys, a Mars encounter at 200km in 2007 and a few asteriod passes. Not to mention the mission to land on the comet itself.

Only another nine and a half years to go.
*
paxdan
During the first earth flyby by Rosetta which took place on the 4th of March, ESA ran a competition to find the best ground based images of the spacecraft during closest approach. The winners were announced on Monday. A gallery of all images taken of the spacecraft is available here.

I remember reading that due to the large size of rosetta's solar panels there was the hope that the shape of the spacecraft migh be resolvable, alas, only one submitter claims to have resolved some structure.

Rosetta meanwhile took some excellent photos of the earth and moon during the encounter
cIclops
QUOTE (paxdan @ Apr 17 2005, 09:43 AM)
Here is a nice self-portrait of the back of one of rosetta's solar pannels taken by one of the 6 micro cameras on the Philae lander. Looks like the pictures of the surface from the lander are gonna be sweet.
*


OMG it's full of stars ...
paxdan
QUOTE (Decepticon @ Apr 20 2005, 03:39 AM)
A few asteroid passes!

Great news. Wonder which ones???

*


This website gives details of two asteriod flybys:

5 sept 2008 - flyby at asteroid 2867 Steins
10 july 2010 - flyby at asteroid 21 Lutetia

NOTE: I've updated this post to include the hyperlinks given in the article for the asteroid biogs.
imran
And I thought the seven years that Cassini took to get to Saturn was long. I don't know what I will doing 9 and a half years from now. It is definitely going to be worth the wait. The pictures look really sharp!
Sunspot
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/SEMT4V2IU7E_0.html

ESA’s comet chaser mission Rosetta took these infrared and visible images of Earth and the Moon, during the Earth fly-by of 4/5 March 2005 while on its way to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Decepticon
A repeat of above data from TPS. http://planetary.org/news/2005/rosetta_ear...mages_0506.html
BruceMoomaw
Good news on the problem with the sticky thermal door covering the OSIRIS cameras -- a problem which ESA had indicated in two status reports starting in January, but about which I simply could not pry any information from them. (Even Mike A'Hearn -- who is a co-investigator! -- had only been told that it was "some kind of stickiness".) ESA's close-mouthedness is a serious pain in the ass.

However, judging from the latest status report, they seem to have finally developed a software fix for it (after one unsuccessful earlier try).

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=37534 :

"On 31 May a test of the OSIRIS door mechanism was carried out with the
presence of the PI team at ESOC. The purpose of this test was to
characterise the behaviour of the flight model, compare it with the test
results on the ground models and finalise the new software routines for the
control of the door to be uplinked on 14 June. The test was successful and
the OSIRIS team has already delivered the new software. ESOC is preparing
for next week's uplink and verification operations."
BruceMoomaw
Postscript: they do plan to use the OSIRIS cameras -- along with all of Rosetta's other remote-sensing instruments -- to observe Tempel 1 during the Deep Impact collision.
djellison
Bruce - would you classify ESA's press efforts as almost being obstructive in places?

Doug
BruceMoomaw
I don't know if "obstructive" is the word, but "idiotic and counterproductive" are definitely applicable. I just stumbled across an old clipping from the JBIS on why the ESA chose to initially display the photos from Giotto in that way that made them totally incomprehensible (and infuriated Thatcher to the point that she forbade Britain to get involved in any major way with the ESA): they were DELIBERATELY made incomprehensible to the public so that the camera's principal investigator would have absolutely total control over their initial interpretation!

I don't know how much of this is the inevitable tangle that accompany international cooperation, and how much is due to the phenomenon in which Jeffrey Bell firmly believes: that European nations still have distinctly anti-democratic and pro-aristocratic tendencies in their political leadership and so still try to resort to "Father Knows Best" approaches in dealing with their own citizens. If so, they've just received another rude awakening on that front...
djellison
I swear I saw some fantastic nebulae observations by one of the Rosetta instruments somewhere online at one point.

Buggered if I can find them now sad.gif

Is there any sort of public-group that represents the public to Nasa? I'm not aware of one, but a representative body that say "right - you need to tell us about x, y, and z, and stop wasting money on b and c" or something? (nasawatch doesnt count wink.gif )

I think something seriously needs to be done to sort ESA out. I wanted to find some HRSC images a few days ago, and it took me for ever to find that page that just has them all listed, it's ..well...crap.

The interface for HRSC data is worse than crap as well.

The Marsis thing is a case in point. We should have had a blog type thing, something, ANYTHING to keep us up to date, I figure there's about Ł1 of my money invested in MEX, so it's time for some pay back smile.gif

Doug
ljk4-1
ROSETTA STATUS REPORT

Report for Period 9 December 2005 - 6 January 2006

The reporting period covers four weeks of passive cruise, with
monitoring and minor maintenance activities.

On the subsystems side, the attitude guidance has been changed to +X
Earth pointing on 14 December 2005, to reduce the disturbance torques
experienced by the spacecraft and therefore the fuel consumption for
reaction wheel offloading.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38558
SigurRosFan
http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602631 - First albedo determination of 2867 Steins, target of the Rosetta mission

--- On the basis of its polarimetric slope value, we have derived an albedo of 0.45 +/-0.1, that gives an estimated diameter of 4.6 km, assuming an absolute V ma gnitude of 13.18 mag. ---
BruceMoomaw
Thre's some speculation that Steins may be one of the rare E-type asteroids (enstatite chondrite) -- although it's so small that its near-IR spectrum is rather fuzzy.
edstrick
The unusually high albedo measured with both polarimietry and with brightness + thermal infrared data (we need Spitzer measurements) really does seem to put this rock in the "e" category. I don't know how sure they currently are that this corresponds to rare and "weird" Enstatite chondrites. Is it the enstatite chondrites that have nearly identical oxygen isotope systematics to Earth and Moon rocks?

ANY opportunity to get a good look as something besides variations-on-a-theme of S type asteroids is extremely welcome. The only totally limited look we have of one is NEAR's nice flyby sequence of C type Mathilde, but it's just a nice sequence of pictures, mostly.

The short 6-hour rotation rate of Steins will help get some rotational coverage, like Gaspra and Ida.
ugordan
What exactly will the closest approach distance to 2867 Steins be? I'll settle for an order-of-magnitude number if the distance is not precisely known yet.
paxdan
QUOTE (ugordan @ Mar 2 2006, 09:35 AM) *
What exactly will the closest approach distance to 2867 Steins be? I'll settle for an order-of-magnitude number if the distance is not precisely known yet.

Flyby September 5, 2008, at 1700 kilometres.
Bob Shaw
And earlier still:

February 2007 - Rosetta Mars flyby (200km altitude)

Bob Shaw
ugordan
QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Mar 18 2006, 06:37 PM) *
February 2007 - Rosetta Mars flyby (200km altitude)

It wonder if they have any plans to produce a flyby movie similar to the one MESSENGER's team produced during the Earth flyby.
It would be cool to see Mars rotate and disappear in the distance, possibly with Phobos and Deimos dancing around it.
Bob Shaw
QUOTE (ugordan @ Mar 18 2006, 05:46 PM) *
It wonder if they have any plans to produce a flyby movie similar to the one MESSENGER's team produced during the Earth flyby.
It would be cool to see Mars rotate and disappear in the distance, possibly with Phobos and Deimos dancing around it.


The ESA website simply says 'some science observations' will be carried out. Anyone know more?

Bob Shaw
BruceMoomaw
They definitely intend to use the MIRO microwave spectrometer during the Mars flyby -- the first time such an instrument has ever been used there -- to make Martian atmospheric observations. (Such a gadget would have been added to MRO if they'd had the weight margin for it). I believe they also intend to use many of the other instruments, too -- although most of them would just reiterate the far more sweeping orbital observations that Mars Express has been doing.
JTN
Since I've just done the sums, I thought I'd share:
(Quite) approximate pixel size of the asteroids in OSIRIS NAC (2048 x 2048 pixels @ 0.00115 deg/pix) at closest approach:
2867 Šteins: 4.6km @ 1700km => 135 pixels
21 Lutetia: 95.8km @ 3000km => 1600 pixels
ljk4-1
Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0603585

From: S. Alan Stern [view email]

Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:04:41 GMT (508kb)

Alice: The Rosetta Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph

Authors: S.A. Stern, D.C. Slater, J. Scherrer, J. Stone, M. Versteeg, M.F. A'Hearn, J.L. Bertaux, P.D. Feldman, M.C. Festou, J.Wm. Parker, O.H.W. Siegmund

Comments: 11 pages, 7 figures

We describe the design, performance and scientific objectives of the NASA-funded ALICE instrument aboard the ESA Rosetta asteroid flyby/comet rendezvous mission. ALICE is a lightweight, low-power, and low-cost imaging spectrograph optimized for cometary far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectroscopy. It will be the first UV spectrograph to study a comet at close range. It is designed to obtain spatially-resolved spectra of Rosetta mission targets in the 700-2050 A spectral band with a spectral resolution between 8 A and 12 A for extended sources that fill its ~0.05 deg x 6.0 deg field-of-view. ALICE employs an off-axis telescope feeding a 0.15-m normal incidence Rowland circle spectrograph with a concave holographic reflection grating. The imaging microchannel plate detector utilizes dual solar-blind opaque photocathodes (KBr and CsI) and employs a 2 D delay-line readout array. The instrument is controlled by an internal microprocessor.

During the prime Rosetta mission, ALICE will characterize comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's coma, its nucleus, and the nucleus/coma coupling; during cruise to the comet, ALICE will make observations of the mission's two asteroid flyby targets and of Mars, its moons, and of Earth's moon.

ALICE has already successfully completed the in-flight commissioning phase and is operating normally in flight. It has been characterized in flight with stellar flux calibrations, observations of the Moon during the first Earth fly-by, and observations of comet Linear T7 in 2004 and comet 9P/Tempel 1 during the 2005 Deep Impact comet-collision observing campaign

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603585
GravityWaves
QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Mar 18 2006, 02:37 PM) *
And earlier still:

February 2007 - Rosetta Mars flyby (200km altitude)

Bob Shaw


I've heard nothing on this Mars flyby mars.gif where does ESA release its press info ?
Rakhir
QUOTE (GravityWaves @ Mar 25 2006, 06:47 PM) *
I've heard nothing on this Mars flyby mars.gif where does ESA release its press info ?


Rosetta journey : http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/ESA38F7708D_0.html
Rosetta factsheet : http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMJ09374OD_0_spk.html
Geometry of the flyby : http://www.space.irfu.se/rosetta/sci/mars/
ljk4-1
Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0603720

From: Jessica Agarwal [view email]

Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:00:59 GMT (713kb)

Imaging the Dust Trail and Neckline of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Authors: J. Agarwal (1), H. Boehnhardt (2), E. Gruen (1 and 3) ((1) MPI-K Heidelberg, (2) MPS Katlenburg-Lindau, (3) HIGP Honolulu)

Comments: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in the proceedings book of the conference "Dust in Planetary Systems 2005"

We report on the results of nearly 10 hours of integration of the dust trail and neckline of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P henceforth) using the Wide Field Imager at the ESO/MPG 2.2m telescope in La Silla. The data was obtained in April 2004 when the comet was at a heliocentric distance of 4.7 AU outbound. 67P is the target of the Rosetta spacecraft of the European Space Agency. Studying the trail and neckline can contribute to the quantification of mm-sized dust grains released by the comet. We describe the data reduction and derive lower limits for the surface brightness. In the processed image, the angular separation of trail and neckline is resolved. We do not detect a coma of small, recently emitted grains.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0603720
Rakhir
A busy period for Rosetta :
- Honda comet tail observation last July
- Lutetia observation in January (At very far distance I guess. Does anyone know the distance ?)
- Mars flyby in February
- Jupiter observation in April in support of New Horizon

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=40366
tedstryk
QUOTE (Rakhir @ Nov 21 2006, 07:57 AM) *
A busy period for Rosetta :
- Honda comet tail observation last July
- Lutetia observation in January (At very far distance I guess. Does anyone know the distance ?)
- Mars flyby in February
- Jupiter observation in April in support of New Horizon

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=40366


I am not sure, but I wonder if we can improve on this shape model. This looks to be a battered relic.

elakdawalla
QUOTE (Rakhir @ Nov 20 2006, 11:57 PM) *
- Lutetia observation in January (At very far distance I guess. Does anyone know the distance ?)

This doesn't give an exact distance but it looks pretty far. Rosetta is currently interior to Mars in its orbit, so it looks like it's around 1 AU away.

From http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=21
IM4
>Lutetia observation in January (At very far distance I guess. Does anyone know the distance ?)
approximately 1.62 AU at January 1, 2007 and increasing up to 1.8 AU by the end of the month.

Quite strange moment for imaging, Rosetta will have tens of "encounters" within 0.1 AU while going through inner parts of Main belt after 2007-2008. Of course , it will be rather small asteroids, smaller than giant Lutetia (almost 100 km long), but yet suitable targets for exporation.
Rakhir
QUOTE (IM4 @ Nov 21 2006, 10:10 PM) *
Quite strange moment for imaging, Rosetta will have tens of "encounters" within 0.1 AU while going through inner parts of Main belt after 2007-2008.

Rosetta will meet Lutetia again on 10 July 2010 for a close flyby (from a distance of 3000 km).
mchan
QUOTE (Rakhir @ Nov 21 2006, 01:24 PM) *
Rosetta will meet Lutetia again on 10 July 2010 for a close flyby (from a distance of 3000 km).

Something to look forward to. The largest asteroid to be encountered to date, and an M-type asteroid which has not been seen close up before. Now if only the ESA folks will kindly post raw images as they receive them...
Holder of the Two Leashes
Does anyone know whether it will be possible to do a mass determination during the Lutetia flyby? Usually these require ultra stable oscillators attached to the transmitters, in order to get a stable enough frequency to track the doppler shift. And you would like to fly as close to your target as possible.

Seeing as how it's an M type, a density measurement, even if it's rough but reasonable (spec. grav +/- 1.5), would be a very useful piece of information.
edstrick
a 3000 km flyby is pretty useless for any asteroid mass determination unless the 'oid is something really big, like over 100 km. What's Lutetia's est. diam?
mchan
Around 100 km. smile.gif So it's borderline.
ugordan
Well, Galileo flybys of Gaspra and Ida were around the same ballpark distance (1600 and 2400 km, respectively) and mass estimates were acquired, probably through two-way doppler before and after the encounter. Rosetta is reaction wheel controlled so in principle it should allow a rough mass estimate to be given in the same way, especially since Lutetia is significantly more massive than the former two so its signature should be much more easily detectable.

EDIT: On second thought, determining Ida's mass was much more straightforward. It has a moon orbiting at a known distance and a known orbital period so mass can be determined to high accuracy. As for Gaspra, the following page has this to say:
QUOTE
Most asteroids are too small to produce noticeable effects on spacecraft. Galileo's 1991 encounter with the asteroid Gaspra produced only images. In 1993, however, Galileo is scheduled to fly by the asteroid Ida, and it is expected that the relatively close approach to Ida will yield the first experimentally measured estimate of an asteroid's mass and therefore density. The corresponding constraints on its composition will allow new insight into theories of the evolution of the solar system and asteroid belt.
Rakhir
Rosetta warms up for Mars swing-by
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMNJ8D4VUE_index_0.html

Instruments from both Rosetta orbiter and Philae lander will be used during the observation campaign.
The purpose of the 36-hour observation campaign of 21-Lutetia is to understand the rotation direction of the asteroid.

Rosetta will be able to observe Mars from about 20 hours before it makes its closest approach to about a few weeks after.
Rosetta instruments will be switched off around the eclipse period. However, Philae lander will still be operating and taking measurements during the eclipse as the lander has its own independent power system.
mchan
The ESA Rosetta website has a list of the various planetary and asteroid flyby's and their dates, but I did not find a graphic / plot of the trajectory. Is there a figure of the trajectory on ESA (or another public) website that shows the flyby's similar to the figure on the Messenger website for the Messenger mission --

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/trajectory.html
AlexBlackwell
For those interested in this kind of thing, a special issue of Space Science Reviews is in the works that will publish several Rosetta-related papers, mostly dealing with the instruments. Several of these papers are in press (i.e., "Online First"), and, for a limited time, SpringerLink is offering free access for non-subscribers, though one may have to register (freely).

Also, note that a paper on the James Webb Space Telescope was just published, and I believe access is free to this one as well.
stevesliva
I saw a passing mention of Phobos and Deimos observations... will these improve visual imagery/catrography, or does Rosetta have some new instruments to bring to bear... or both?
ustrax
QUOTE (stevesliva @ Dec 1 2006, 05:06 AM) *
I saw a passing mention of Phobos and Deimos observations... will these improve visual imagery/catrography, or does Rosetta have some new instruments to bring to bear... or both?


Here's everything Rosetta's has to give...
IM4
QUOTE (mchan @ Nov 30 2006, 04:45 AM) *
The ESA Rosetta website has a list of the various planetary and asteroid flyby's and their dates, but I did not find a graphic / plot of the trajectory. Is there a figure of the trajectory on ESA (or another public) website that shows the flyby's similar to the figure on the Messenger website for the Messenger mission --
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/trajectory.html


I recommend you download this file (3 Mb). It is mostly about planned plasma science but also contains a pair of schematic graphics like those I’ve attached to the message. On the image you can see Mars, orbits of Phobos (red), Deimos (green), estimated orbits of Mars Express (black), MGS (cyan), Mars Odyssey (yellow) and of course Rosetta trajectory (blue) - the spacecraft will approach Mars from the dayside (from the right) and make a swingby on the opposite side of Mars. There are also several useful figures and groundtrack in the file, so I can derive approximate timeline and summarize it as follows :

24 Feb. 2007 07.48 UT – flyby phase begins
25 Feb. 2007 01.00 UT – close approach to Mars begins
- 01.30-01.43 UT - Rosetta flies over Arabia Terra (h>3000 km)
- 01.45-01.50 UT – Rosetta crosses Chryse Planitia (2000>h>500 km)
- 01.55 UT – closest approach over Tempe Terra ~ 300E, 45N (h=250 km)
- 01.56 UT – Rosetta enters Mars shadow
- 02.05 UT – Rosetta flies over Olympus Mons (h=3000 km)
- 02.20 UT – Rosetta leaves Mars shadow (h=10000 km)
25 Feb. 2007 20.03 UT – flyby phase ends

It’s a real pity that significant part of the closest flyby happens in the nightside. Visual imaging will be possible only at greater distance and with moderate resolution, but I still hope that VIRTIS’s IR –cam can capture magnificent photo of martian plains [fixed:)] and mountains throughout the entire flyby. Another instruments are also expected to obtain interesting results.
ugordan
QUOTE (IM4 @ Dec 5 2006, 08:04 PM) *
magnificent photo of martian planes

Don't let H0ag1and hear you! wink.gif Thanks for the doc, btw.
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