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.'
Related Stories
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.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 22 2014, @06:46AM
link to BBC is broken: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-266837 63 [bbc.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Saturday March 22 2014, @09:42AM
Is it just me that reads something like "[Rosetta] continues to close in on its comet quarry", and secretly hopes that the comet starts to take evasive action?
That would be an emotional moment.
(Score: 3) by bucc5062 on Saturday March 22 2014, @11:40AM
That is some serious science and engineering. Congratulations to everyone who is making this project a success. While I wish it were humans actually exploring, on location, this is still something to watch. The tattoo might has been a little overboard, but hey, this is what happens when you get drunk on science; you wake up the next morning with an orbiter inked on your thigh.
The more things change, the more they look the same