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posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the lander-has-a-date-why-can't-marvin? dept.

A quick note to mention that the ESA have announced that:

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission will deploy its lander, Philae, to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014.

There is a Press Release with more details available. For additional background on the Rosetta probe, there have been Soylent stories on the Probe's wakeup from hibernation, arrival at 67P, mapping the comet and camera images.

For more information see the ESA Rosetta Page.

Related Stories

Comet-Chaser Rosetta's Instruments Come Alive 3 comments

janrinok writes:

"From the BBC comes a report of Rosetta's awakening after almost 3 years in hibernation."

From the report:

The Rosetta probe has started turning on its instruments. After coming out of a near three-year, deep-space hibernation in January, the satellite now has sufficient power to check out its science payload. The spacecraft is currently about 675 million km from Earth, and continues to close in on its comet quarry. Rosetta should arrive at the icy body in early August, when it will then start mapping the object to find a safe spot to put down its little lander. This craft, known as Philae, is piggy-backing the main probe, and was set to receive its wake-up commands on Friday. It will be another week, however, before they are actioned.

Dr Matt Taylor, the European Space Agency's Rosetta project scientist, told BBC News: 'The mission as a whole had this big emotional moment in January when the spacecraft was woken up. Now, individual teams must experience something similar again as each one of Rosetta's 11 instruments is turned on for testing.'

Rosetta Finally Arrives at Comet 67P 6 comments

After a decade-long journey and four gravity-assist flybys, the Rosetta space probe has finally reached its destination: the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Congratulations to the team!

The comet has shown variable activity as it is approaching the Sun in its elliptical, 6.5-year orbit. For the time being, watch for outstanding images of the comet's core, early scientific results, and the deploy of the Philae lander, currently expected for 11 November.

More information at the Rosetta blog.

First Map of Rosetta's Comet 5 comments

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-308

Scientists have found that the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko—the target of study for the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission—can be divided into several regions, each characterized by different classes of features. High-resolution images of the comet reveal a unique, multifaceted world.

ESA's Rosetta spacecraft arrived at its destination about a month ago and is currently accompanying the comet as it progresses on its route toward the inner solar system. Scientists have analyzed images of the comet's surface taken by OSIRIS, Rosetta's scientific imaging system, and defined several different regions, each of which has a distinctive physical appearance. This analysis provides the basis for a detailed scientific description of 67P's surface. A map showing the comet's various regions is available at: http://go.nasa.gov/1pU26L2

The new comet maps will offer valuable insights for members of the Rosetta team, who are gathering in Toulouse, France, on September 13 and 14, to determine a primary and backup landing site from five candidates they previously had selected.

For background, see: Rosetta: Landing Site Search Narrows which was published on August 25, 2014:

The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission has chosen five candidate landing sites on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for its Philae lander. Philae's descent to the comet's nucleus, scheduled for this November, will be the first such landing ever attempted. Rosetta is an international mission spearheaded by the European Space Agency with support and instruments provided by NASA.

Choosing the right landing site is a complex process. It must balance the technical needs of the orbiter and lander during all phases of the separation, descent and landing, and during operations on the surface, with the scientific requirements of the 10 instruments on board Philae. A key issue is that uncertainties in navigating the orbiter close to the comet mean that it is possible to specify any given landing zone only in terms of an ellipse—covering about-four-tenths of a square mile (one square kilometer)—within which Philae might land.

Amateur Processing of Rosetta Pictures 5 comments

As the Rosetta lander approaches its target comet for a landing in November there are a series of pictures available, and these images have been postprocessed to highlight jets from the comet.

The Rosetta Space Probe is a European Space Agency mission to land a probe on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The pictures are taken from Rosetta's Navigation Camera (NAVCAM) at a distance of 28.6 kilometers as it closes in on the comet ahead of the scheduled descent of the Philae lander.

This particular image is an example of the ESA releasing detailed mosaic images for amateurs to process, which started a few weeks ago, and continues to provide some stunning NAVCAM images.

The raw images were released on the ESA blog and there's a summary of the mission objectives available.

Rosetta has been covered previously on Soylent at arrival and mapping of 67P.

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