Search Publications
Attitude reconstruction of ROSETTA's Lander PHILAE using two-point magnetic field observations by ROMAP and RPC-MAG
Richter, Ingo; Auster, Hans-Ulrich; Heinisch, Philip +5 more
As part of the European Space Agency's ROSETTA Mission the Lander PHILAE touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. The magnetic field has been measured onboard the orbiter and the lander. The orbiter's tri-axial fluxgate magnetometer RPC-MAG is one of five sensors of the ROSETTA Plasma Consortium. The lander is also equ…
Electric sail option for cometary rendezvous
Janhunen, Pekka; Quarta, Alessandro A.; Mengali, Giovanni
The recent successes of the European Rosetta mission have shown the possibility of a close observation with one of the most evasive celestial bodies in the Solar System, the comets, and the practical feasibility of a comet rendezvous to obtain detailed information and in situ measurements. This paper discusses a preliminary study of the transfer t…
MIDAS: Lessons learned from the first spaceborne atomic force microscope
Torkar, Klaus; Mannel, Thurid; Schmied, Roland +6 more
The Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System (MIDAS) atomic force microscope (AFM) onboard the Rosetta orbiter was the first such instrument launched into space in 2004. Designed only a few years after the technique was invented, MIDAS is currently orbiting comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko and producing the highest resolution 3D images of cometary dust e…
Planning and implementation of the on-comet operations of the instrument SD2 onboard the lander Philae of Rosetta mission
Mottola, S.; Remetean, E.; Dolives, B. +4 more
The lander Philae of the Rosetta mission landed on the surface of the comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. Among the specific subsystems and instruments carried on Philae, the sampling, drilling and distribution (SD2) subsystem had the role of providing in-situ operations devoted to soil drilling, sample collection, and their dis…
The SESAME/CASSE instrument listening to the MUPUS PEN insertion phase on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Schmidt, W.; Knollenberg, J.; Knapmeyer, M. +7 more
After the final landing of Philae at the Abydos site on comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the MUPUS (Multipurpose Sensors for Surface and Sub-Surface Science) device started hammering itself into the cometary ground on 14th November 2014, and continued hammering for more than 3 h. During this period, the CASSE (Comet Acoustic Surface Sounding Expe…
Rosetta science operations in support of the Philae mission
Altobelli, Nicolas; Almeida, Miguel; Martin, Patrick +16 more
The international Rosetta mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 and after its ten year journey, arrived at its target destination of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, during 2014. Following the January 2014 exit from a two and half year hibernation period, Rosetta approached and arrived at the comet in August 2014. In November 2014, the Philae lan…
Rosetta following a living comet
Ferri, Paolo; Accomazzo, Andrea; Hubault, Armelle +7 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 mission operations for landing
Accomazzo, Andrea; Lodiot, Sylvain; Companys, Vicente
The International Rosetta Mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 year journey to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and has reached it early August 2014. The main mission objectives were to perform close observations of the comet nucleus throughout its orbit around the Sun and deliver the lander Philae to its …
Philae locating and science support by robotic vision techniques
Remetean, E.; Souvannavong, F.; Dolives, B. +4 more
The ROLIS, CIVA-P and OSIRIS instruments on-board the Philae lander and the Rosetta orbiter acquired high-resolution images during the lander's descent towards the targeted landing site Agilkia, during its unexpected rebounds and at the final landing site Abydos on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We, exploited these images, using robotic vision t…
An investigation into potential causes of the anomalistic feature observed by the Rosetta Alice spectrograph around 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Parker, Joel Wm.; Stern, S. Alan; Noonan, John +6 more
The Alice far-ultraviolet spectrograph in operation around the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on the Rosetta spacecraft experiences an anomalistic feature (AF) that is ubiquitous at comet separations less than 450 km. This feature is highly temporally variable and displays no relation to any studied parameters with the exception of comet separati…