Comet-hunting probe Rosetta wakes up from deep space hibernation
Source: thewatchers.adorraeli.com
After 31 months of deep space hibernation ESA’s comet chaser "Rosetta" has woken up and contacted mission control today. The signal was received by NASA’s Goldstone ground station in California at 18:18 UTC, during the first window of opportunity the spacecraft had to communicate with Earth. It was immediately confirmed in ESA’s space operations center in Darmstadt.If everything goes by the plan, Rosetta will become the first space mission to rendezvous with a comet, the first to attempt a landing on a comet’s surface, and the first to follow a comet as it swings around the Sun.
Since its launch in 2004, Rosetta has made three flybys of Earth and one of Mars to help it on course to its rendezvous with 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, encountering asteroids Steins and Lutetia along the way.
Operating on solar energy alone, Rosetta was placed into a deep space sleep in June 2011 as it cruised out to a distance of nearly 800 million km from the warmth of the Sun, beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
The first images of a distant 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko are expected in May 2014, which will dramatically improve calculations of the comet’s position and orbit.
In early May, Rosetta will be 2 million km from its target, and towards the end of May it will execute a major maneuver to line up for the rendezvous.
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Read the full article at: thewatchers.adorraeli.com
