Rosetta Lander - after seven years of cruise, prepared for hibernation

Paper number

IAC-11,A3,4,3,x9823

Author

Dr. Stephan Ulamec, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Dr. Jens Biele, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Mrs. Cinzia Fantinati, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Mr. J.-F. Fronton, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France

Coauthor

Mr. Philippe Gaudon, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France

Coauthor

Dr. Koen Geurts, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Mr. Christian Krause, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Mr. Oliver Küchemann, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Mr. Michael Maibaum, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Mrs. Brigitte Pätz, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Mr. R. Roll, MPS, Germany

Coauthor

Dr. Guido Sangiovanni, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), Italy

Coauthor

Dr. Rainer Willnecker, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Year

2011

Abstract

Rosetta is a Cornerstone Mission of the ESA Horizon 2000 programme. It is going to rendezvous with comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a 10 year cruise and will study both its nucleus and coma with an orbiting spacecraft and a landed platform. The latter, named Philae, has been designed to land softly on the comet nucleus and is equipped with 10 scientific instruments to perform in-situ studies of the cometary material. Philae has been provided by a large international consortium.
Rosetta was successfully launched on March 2nd, 2004 from Kourou in French Guyana. Philae is operated by the Lander Control Centre (LCC) at DLR, Cologne and the Science Operations and Navigation Centre (SONC) at CNES, Toulouse via the European Spacecraft Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt. The scientific lead is at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Science (Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany) and the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (Paris). 

Since launch, the Lander has been operational during commissioning, several checkouts, two planetary swing-bys at the Earth and one at Mars, fly-bys at asteroids Šteins and Lutetia as well as some additional activities for calibration and failure investigation.   Payload checkout PC13 was the last Lander activation prior to a deep space hibernation phase of Rosetta, starting in June 2011 and lasting until approaching the comet in 2014.

The paper will describe the various Lander activities over the last seven years and give an outlook of near- and on-comet operations.  Landing is foreseen in November 2014 at a heliocentric distance of 3 AU.  Prior to that, detailed characterization of the comet nucleus has to be performed with the Rosetta Orbiter instruments.

Abstract document

IAC-11,A3,4,3,x9823.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-11,A3,4,3,x9823.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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