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Rosetta on its way to the outer solar system
Montagnon, Elsa; Ferri, Paolo
The International Rosetta Mission, a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 years journey towards a rendezvous with comet Churyumov Gerasimenko. Once reached the comet nucleus in summer 2014, Rosetta will orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometers and …
SMA gas release mechanism for the Rosetta Lander's Ptolemy instrument
Sawyer, Eric; Edeson, Ruben; Whalley, Martin +2 more
The Ptolemy instrument on the Rosetta comet lander “Philae” is an advanced gas analyser. The instrument relies on a supply of ultra-clean helium gas to carry cometary matter through a series of gas chromatography columns and high temperature reactors, into a mass spectrometer. The helium is stored in a pair of titanium gas tanks, pressurised to 50…
Cassini/Huygens at Saturn and Titan
Mitchell, Robert T.
The Cassini/Huygens Project is a joint undertaking between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to conduct an in-depth exploration of the Saturnian system. The spacecraft consists of an orbiter vehicle and an atmospheric probe which has completed its mission in the atmosphere and on the surface of Titan, the largest moon o…
The Huygens probe—space history in many ways
Lebreton, Jean-Pierre; Schipper, Anne Marie
The European Space Agency's Huygens probe, developed under the prime contractorship of Alcatel Alenia Space, has on the 14th January 2005 arrived at its final destination, Saturn's largest Moon Titan. This event provides a major step in our solar system exploration activities and represents a significant contribution to the exploration of Titan, a…
Low cost development for the Rosetta Lander French subsystems: Lessons learned
Debus, Andre; Moura, Denis
After the delay of the Rosetta mission launch, previously planned in January 2003, this mission, led by ESA, will finally be launched from Kourou by Ariane V G+ at the beginning of next year (2004). After a long trip, the spacecraft will reach the comet Churyumov Gerasimenko in 2014. The mission includes a lander, built by an European consortium u…
On the concepts of a highly integrated payload suite for use in future planetary missions: The example of the BepiColombo Mercury planetary orbiter
Schulz, R.; Erd, C.; Buis, E. J. +6 more
Future low resource payload concepts will need to be developed from the viewpoint of a standard integrated payload suite where resources are dramatically reduced through high levels of integration and resource sharing. The study of this approach, its gains together with its limitations was the key objective of this work. The highly compact integra…
SMART-1: Development and lessons learnt
Rathsman, Peter; Kugelberg, Joakim; Bodin, Per +3 more
SMART-1 is the first of the small missions for advanced research and technology as part of ESA's science programme “Cosmic vision”. It was successfully launched on September 27, 2003 and is presently traveling towards its destination, the Moon. The main objective of the mission, to demonstrate solar electric primary propulsion for future Cornersto…
Smart-1: An analysis of flight data
Di Cara, Davina M.; Estublier, Denis
The main purpose of the ESA SMART-1 mission, (Small Mission for Advanced Research and Technology), is to flight-test a new Primary Electric Propulsion sub-System (EPS), a highly efficient and lightweight propulsion sub-System that will eventually be used for long duration deep-space missions, reducing the size and the cost of the propulsion system…
Accommodating electric propulsion on SMART-1
Rathsman, Peter; Kugelberg, Joakim; Bodin, Per +1 more
This paper focuses on the technical challenges that arise when electric propulsion is used on a small spacecraft such as SMART-1. The choice of electric propulsion influences not only the attitude control system and the power system, but also the thermal control as well as the spacecraft structure. A description is given on how the design of the a…
Mars Express-ESA's first mission to planet Mars
Schmidt, R.
ESA' Mars Express mission is a fully approved and funded project which has entered its spacecraft development (i.e. hardware) phase early January 2000. It is the first of ESA's new 'F' (flexible) missions which are based on a new implementation scenario to maintain overall mission cost below a stringent cost cap. The key features of an F-mission a…