Rosetta Radio Science Investigations (RSI)
Neubauer, Fritz M.; Tellmann, Silvia; Tsurutani, Bruce T.; Pätzold, Martin; Häusler, Bernd; Anderson, John D.; Bird, Michael K.; Carone, Ludmila; Thomas, Nicolas; Wickramasinghe, N. C.; Asmar, Sami W.; Barriot, Jean-Pierre; Rickman, Hans; Boehnhardt, Hermann; Aksnes, Kaare; Eidel, Werner; Grün, Eberhardt; Ip, Wing H.; Marouf, Essam; Morley, Trevor; Wallis, Max K.; Mysen, Eirik; Olson, Oystein; Remus, Stefan; Andert, Thomas; Fels, Markus; Stanzel, Christina; Audenrieth-Kersten, Iris; Gahr, Alexander; Müller, Anna-Liane; Stupar, Dusan; Walter, Christina
Germany, Norway, United States, France, Taiwan, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Abstract
The Rosetta spacecraft has been successfully launched on 2nd March 2004 to its new target comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The science objectives of the Rosetta Radio Science Investigations (RSI) experiment address fundamental aspects of cometary physics such as the mass and bulk density of the nucleus, its gravity field, its interplanetary orbit perturbed by nongravitational forces, its size and shape, its internal structure, the composition and roughness of the nucleus surface, the abundance of large dust grains, the plasma content in the coma and the combined dust and gas mass flux. The masses of two asteroids, Steins and Lutetia, shall be determined during flybys in 2008 and 2010, respectively. Secondary objectives are the radio sounding of the solar corona during the superior conjunctions of the spacecraft with the Sun during the cruise phase.