Submitted via IRC for Bytram
It's time for Europe's comet probe, Rosetta, to die. At 4:48pm ET (20:48 UTC) Thursday, the spacecraft fired its thruster for 208 seconds, setting Rosetta on course for a controlled descent to the surface of its comet on Friday morning at approximately 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC).
In accord with the spacecraft's descent to the surface, the European Space Agency will provide live coverage via Livestream about an hour before the landing time. The live video will feature status updates from mission controllers live from the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.
The spacecraft should touch down at a walking pace, then be commanded to shut down.
Signal Lost as expected at 12:18 UTC
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UPDATE: Rosetta to Finish its Slow Descent to Comet's Surface Friday Morning - SIGNAL LOST
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(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @07:14AM
That's not a comet! she shrieks. It's a snowball! To hell with it and it won't melt you'll see! It's a cold day in hell when NAZI GERMANY CONQUERS SPACE!!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Friday September 30 2016, @08:20AM
Someone is bound to ask "why don't they .......?" so I'll try to provide some answers to help explain the team's decision.
The Rosetta craft is solar powered and both the craft and the comet it is orbiting are rapidly moving away from the sun. Power levels are dropping and, if the team wait much longer, there will be insufficient power to achieve anything useful at all. Therefore they have elected to get as much science from the craft as they possibly can.
Currently, the craft has enough power to transmit data back to Earth and to operate most of it's sensors. By 'crashing' the craft into the surface - at a relative speed to the comet of a little over a walking pace - they are maximizing data collection and getting that data back for analysis. Already, imagery of the comet from a distance of 5km has been received. Such images carry a wealth of information that will take, according to the mission's chief scientist's statement on the BBC about 1 hour ago, over 10 years of analysis and effort by the scientific community worldwide to fully exploit.
The communications channel currently being used by the craft is wanted for future missions. If the craft is allowed to continue without being shutdown it could still provide additional random signals which would interfere with other potential users of this channel. Leaving Rosetta to die slowly removes a valuable communications resource from the scientific community which could provide more valuable data from another source.
The Rosetta mission, along with all of its highs and lows, has far exceeded what was initially hoped of it, and certainly more than anyone could dream of when the idea was first proposed in the early 1980s. The team, and those of us who have followed the mission's progress with interest, are proud of what it has achieved. They are more than happy to finish on another high - very close imagery of a comet. For the next few hours I wish the Rosetta craft 'Bon Voyage' and 'Happy Landings'. With all that is wrong in the world today, it is good to see what man can achieve when we put our mind to it.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday September 30 2016, @08:23AM
its sensors*
Typing too quickly for my slow brain - apologies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @08:36AM
Rationally, it makes sense, but I can imagine many people involved in the project are also a little sad to see it go. If you devote years of your life to something like this, you will probably grow attached to it, and knowing the craft is destroyed and you will never receive another transmission from it must be saddening. For the operators, it's the end of an era.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @08:56AM
The Chief Scientist mentioned this very fact.
The project began in the early 1980s and started recruiting staff shortly thereafter. Some of the team have spent almost their entire working life on this one project. He said that there were very mixed emotions in the control room today. Many of those present are hoping to achieve another success but knowing it comes at the cost of the Rosetta craft. There is, of course, many years work left for most of the team. Not only those who will analyse the data, but others who will look at all phases of the project and see what lessons can be learned for the future. Of course, they don't all pack their bags at 5pm and go home. I do hope that they have some time for a holiday and a celebration though...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @10:56AM
Someone is bound to ask "why don't they .......?"
Why don't they admit it is A HOAX?
There is NO space, at least not as the 'space programs' claim it to be. I have been working with 'space' more than a decade now, it is all smoke and mirrors.
It is amazing how people bite and rush forth to regurgitate information they acquire at an earlier point to defend this nonsense. "landing on a comet". Yea, sure Bruce Willis, whatever you say.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday September 30 2016, @11:32AM
Pick some toys and go play outside. Leave the adults to have a conversation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @01:47PM
Pick some toys and go play outside.
I have. So I did. I picked a x200 refractory telescope, and a high-precision gyroscope.
Leave the adults to have a conversation.
"The adults" should have a conversation as to why the x200 refractory telescope shows that the Earth has no curvature, and why the high-precision gyroscope shows that the Earth is motionless.
Unless, of course, by "have a conversation" you mean that they are watching space fiction and commenting on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @02:18PM
*sigh*
Very well.
your gyro [metabunk.org]
your telescope [metabunk.org]
Why not get one of these gyros [kinggyros.com], point your telescope at the stars, and take in the vast, incomprehensibly mind-bogglingly huge majesty of God's creation? Perhaps find a dark sky park [darksky.org] you can get to this weekend and see what you can see?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:19PM
So what is your point, besides that you like greek food and have a bad humor taste? That the gyroscope does not detect any motion because "of friction" (but foucault's pendulum has no friction problems, according to some "expert" on the site you quoted no doubt as clever as you), and that the lack of curvature is because of "refraction"? What about aircraft gyroscopes? And naval ones? And lack of "coriolis effect" on ANY flight EVER, and ANY artillery shot EVER? What about the refraction at 10 miles away? At 30? At 60, where Chicago can be seen across the lake? At 100 miles and more, over salt planes?
Go perform your own experiments before REGURGITATING EVEN MORE CRAP of what you "think you know". Do this before you embarrass yourself further.
And save your pretentious "*sigh*" for later: this is not going to end as you think it will.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @05:07PM
Haha! Sorry, dude. I can't take the time off to verify Eratosthenes' figures at the moment. Do you have an alternate interpretation of his observations that would show a flat earth that's consistent with the azimuthal equidistant map? Speaking of...
Jake Gowans writes [quora.com]:
The most widely accepted outer circumference of the earth among flat earthers is roughly 78,000 miles. Using the standard flat earth projection , and following the south polar route taken by Qantas flight QF0027 (Sydney SYD - Santiago SCL), the approximate arc would be roughly 48,000 km (as opposed to the roughly 11,265 miles it would take following a spherical projection crossing around 62 degrees S). The 747-400 (the plane which Qantas uses to operate this route) has a range of 13,450 km with the ER variant extending this to about 14,400 km, less than one third the range required to fly the route based on the flat earth projection. No passenger plane currently in service could make such a flight non-stop. Note that on a flat earth projection, the shortest route from Sydney to Santiago would be to travel north over Brisbane, crossing the US west coast, South through Mexico and then on to Chile. Obviously that's not the route that Qantas follow - maybe they're party of the round earth conspiracy?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:37AM
Buy a globe. Just a relatively cheap, old fashioned global model of the earth. Get one that has all the bumps and crap on it, to mark the mountain ranges. Those bumps may or may not be precisely to scale, but they are close enough for argument's sake. Find Mt. Everest, and see how small it is, in relation to the rest of the earth. It's just a little pimple. You're looking for proof of the earth's curvature, at ranges of a mile, ten miles, and sixty miles? FFS - try thinking a little larger than that.
Can you get on an airplane? Not necessarily a commercial airline. Get way up high. Someone who can lift you ten miles would be great. Now, scan the horizon with your telescope, or a good pair of binoculars.
Make any excuses you care to make, but what I've seen with my own eyes is enough to convince me that the earth is round.
How about navigation? Sailors chart courses routinely, based on that round earth model. And, they get where they intended to go, if they are moderately competent.
But, you're a whole lot smarter than sailors, airline pilots, scientists, and anyone else who believes the earth to be spherical.
Why don't you take a vacation to someplace exotic? Bangkok sounds good to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @12:38PM
Can you get on an airplane? [..] Someone who can lift you ten miles would be great.
I can, and they have. It was a clear day, and I could see the Ural mountain range [wikipedia.org]as clear as day, while I was heading north and over central Germany. Impossible on a globe.
Also, if you were not too lazy to do the calculations, you would realize that 60 miles (100 km) of distance, seen from an altitude of 2 meters (6 ft) yield a "hidden height" from the alleged curve of the Earth of 2100 feet (~700 m). Yet, Chicago can be seen, impossible on a globe.
But, you're a whole lot smarter than sailors, airline pilots, scientists, and anyone else who believes the earth to be spherical.
I never claimed I was, so save it (your sarcasm) for the Judge: if you were indeed interested in what those experts had to say, you would have investigated and would know by now that there is an increasing number of experts coming forth and testifying that according to their life's work and experiences and to their best of their professional knowledge the shape of the Earth is consistent with that of a stationary plane.
Those include: international shipping expert; navy missile instructor; commercial airline pilots; military artillery trainer; industrial valve expert; land surveyor; submarine pilot; military radar operator, Antarctic base industrial plumber, and many others, the list increasing by the week. None of those people believe that the Earth is spherical, while all started believing that it was. Many have professional experience that shows them that it is stationary and flat not only as far as their eyes can see, but as far as their instruments can tell as well. Granted, some are still in the shadows, but others take no issue giving interviews on air.
I have heard their testimonies. Have you? I didn't think so: but you just assumed that those experts all "believe the world is a globe" whereas, in fact, they do not. After all, why do the actual research yourself, while you can google, eye-ball and half-ass it as usual, and then embarrass yourself by sounding certain of something you have literally no grasp on?
It is hilarious you ended up proving my point for me, though.
PS> I take note that, as usual, you are sidestepping the x200 telescope and gyroscope arguments. What is keeping you from performing those experiments?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 01 2016, @05:23PM
I know that if I leave any equatorial city, and fly about 24k miles due east or west, I will arrive back at that equatorial city in a couple days. I know that people have sailed around the earth, prior to the invention of any modern navigational gear. Sarcasm is appropriate here - how many times must it be proven that the earth is spherical?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @09:32PM
I know that if I leave any equatorial city,
If the Earth is as a disk, then the equator is a circle. You follow your bearing, and you can follow this circle back where you started. So, you can "circumnavigate" a disk as well.
The real deal is that nobody has ever circumnavigated the Earth from pole to pole: and this will never happen, because the Antarctic is a wall, not a continent.
how many times must it be proven that the earth is spherical?
Once would be enough. But this has never happened, and it never will, because the Earth is not a moving sphere. Hence the space race to "provide pictures from space, problem solved, end of debate". Hence the locking down of the North pole, space, and the "continent" of Antarctica.
Look into this all you wish: you will find it easy to debunk the globe, but you can never debunk the plane. Truth does not bulk under scrutiny, it welcomes it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:29PM
Perhaps if you stare long enough you will think you see your imaginary sky fairy. Lol.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @04:53PM
I see my imaginary sky fairy every time I look at the Cosmos, no matter how large or how small the scale. Stars and galaxies are interesting. Atoms and molecules and cells are fascinating.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 30 2016, @12:26PM
Ha ha ha, you almost had me fooled there, but I know the real truth, which is of course that there are NO OTHER PEOPLE IN THE UNIVERSE. Only me. Everyone else I see, meet or hear or encounter on the so-called "internet", including you, is simply a figment of my own fevered and isolated imagination. Nice try though, I almost tricked me into replying to me.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday September 30 2016, @02:22PM
That's what the lizard people want you to believe, coppertop!
The moon matrix… has… you!
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Friday September 30 2016, @12:13PM
Which leaves the question of why they couldn't use an RTG for both Rosetta & the Philae lander, and they would have had a functional lander coupled with an active monitoring mission as 67P travelled on for a number of years (In theory it would be possible to cover multiple orbits, since 67P has a period of ~7 years).
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Friday September 30 2016, @01:08PM
Because they have far exceeded the original mission expectations without one. ESA did not fall into the trap of mission creep, and solar power has met all the power requirements of the mission specification.
Additionally, when the mission was first planned, Europe perhaps had other reasons for not using RTGs. Politically they were, and to a degree still are, thought of as being unacceptable or undesirable by some of European nations. In 2005, a year after the launch of the Rosetta mission, the chief of ESA was still arguing the case for nuclear power options in space [space.com].
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Friday September 30 2016, @06:06PM
There's a chicken-and-egg style question there; were the original mission expectations limited because the use of a nuclear power source was considered politically unacceptable, and therefore the mission duration was constrained by the solar power factor upfront?
Also the issue with the Philae lander: whilst within the (conservative) mission objectives, the performance was clearly limited by the available power budget due to problems with solar. An RTG would have mitigated the associated risks, and provided for a vastly extended mission life. There are few non-political downsides, given this was a well understood & proven technology back when Voyager 1 got launched. (well, the ESA might have had to get NASA to provide the RTG itself, but I'm still filing that under "political".)
Given the massive upfront costs associated with a decade of effort in just getting there, I have a hard time seeing that limiting the lander and the backend of the overall mission due to power generation based on political considerations which boil down to "nuclear bad" was a worthwhile trade off.
And, since my deja-vu kicked in, it turns out I submitted this way back, which covers the the issue in a bit more detail: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/11/24/1019226 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @07:22PM
One thing that occurs to me is the weight of the radioactive stuff.
Wouldn't they have needed to beef up the structure of the payload vehicles (more expensive)?
(Wouldn't the RTG itself also have added cost?)
Wouldn't the boost vehicle also have needed to be more powerful (more expensive)?
...and, as janrinok indicates, would an RTG have needed a bunch of extra permits/approvals?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 30 2016, @12:15PM
It's going to be crazy when there is a probe around every large comet, asteroid, and dwarf planet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Tara Li on Friday September 30 2016, @01:46PM
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @08:21AM
it screamed and then bought me breakfast. i said "see you in the evening"
and the match said "thank you for giving me life - can you burn more of me on some cake?"
so i did it and the match said "FUCK YOU I AIN'T NO TRAVELING CIRCUS!"
the match then found another match in the batch of matches.
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 30 2016, @10:57AM
> It's time for Europe's comet probe, Rosetta, to die
I watched a big ol' lump of dirty ice spin like a potato in the dark near nothing in particular. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears, in rain. Time to die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @07:05PM
He's a huge "Armageddon" fan. Let him have this one. [xkcd.com]
(Apparently, all that "Science" stuff was just a cover for the *actual* mission.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Drake_Edgewater on Friday September 30 2016, @12:02PM
I found this entry very interesting. It starts talking about a 'singing comet', but then it explains the magnetic field data collected from Rosetta and the interaction between the comet and its surroundings, and how a cavity is formed as it moves closer to the Sun. There are links to the scientific papers too!
A comet's life [esa.int]