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The science planning process on the Rosetta mission

Altobelli, Nicolas; Choukroun, Mathieu; Vallat, Claire +9 more

The Rosetta mission arrived at comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in Summer 2014, after more than 10 years in space. All previous mission encounters with a comet have provided a snapshot of the cometary activity at a given heliocentric distance. In contrast, Rosetta has escorted the comet nucleus for an extended period (>2 years) at a large range…

The final year of the Rosetta mission

Ferri, Paolo; Accomazzo, Andrea; Hubault, Armelle +6 more

The International Rosetta Mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 year journey to rendezvous with comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta performed comet orbit insertion on the 6th of August 2014, after which it characterised the nucleus and orbited it at altitudes as low as a few kilometres. In November 2014 Rosetta delivered the lander…

Rosetta Lander - Philae: Operations on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, analysis of wake-up activities and final state

Mottola, Stefano; Scholten, Frank; Kührt, Ekkehard +19 more

The Lander Philae, part of the ESA Rosetta mission successfully landed on comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko on November 12th, 2014. After several (unplanned) bounces it performed a First Scientific Sequence (FSS), based on the energy stored in its on board batteries. All ten instruments of the payload aboard Philae have been operated at least once.…

Reconstruction of the flight and attitude of Rosetta's lander Philae

Richter, Ingo; Auster, Hans-Ulrich; Heinisch, Philip +14 more

Since Rosetta's lander Philae touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014, many tools have been applied to reconstruct Philae's flight path and attitude between separation, the touchdowns, collision and the final landing at Abydos. In addition to images from the cameras onboard both orbiter and lander (;OSIRIS;, ;CIVA; and…