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Performance of the mission critical Electrical Support System (ESS) which handled communications and data transfer between the Rosetta Orbiter and its Lander Philae while en route to and at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
McKenna-Lawlor, Susan; Schmidt, Walter; Geurts, Koen +4 more
The Electrical Support System (ESS), which was designed and built in Ireland, handled commands transmitted from the Rosetta spacecraft to the Command and Data Management System (CDMS) aboard its Lander Philae during a ten year Cruise Phase to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as well as at the comet itself. The busy Cruise Phase included three Earth…
Rosetta Lander - Philae: Landing preparations
Sierks, Holger; Jurado, Eric; Ulamec, Stephan +11 more
Rosetta and Philae have been in hibernation until January 20, 2014. After the successful wakeup they underwent a post-hibernation commissioning. The orbiter instruments (like e.g. the OSIRIS cameras, VIRTIS, MIRO, Alice and ROSINA) characterized the target comet and its environment to allow landing site selection and the definition of a separation…
End-of-life disposal concepts for Libration Point Orbit and Highly Elliptical Orbit missions
Rossi, Alessandro; Landgraf, Markus; Soldini, Stefania +6 more
Libration Point Orbits (LPOs) and Highly Elliptical Orbits (HEOs) are often selected for astrophysics and solar terrestrial missions. No guidelines currently exist for their end-of-life disposal. However, as current and future missions are planned to be placed on these orbits, it is a critical aspect to clear these regions at the end of operations…
Astra: Interdisciplinary study on enhancement of the end-to-end accuracy for spacecraft tracking techniques
Iess, Luciano; Tortora, Paolo; Di Benedetto, Mauro +3 more
Navigation of deep-space probes is accomplished through a variety of different radio observables, namely Doppler, ranging and Delta-Differential One-Way Ranging (Delta-DOR). The particular mix of observations used for navigation mainly depends on the available on-board radio system, the mission phase and orbit determination requirements. The accur…
Landing on small bodies: From the Rosetta Lander to MASCOT and beyond
Ulamec, Stephan; Biele, Jens; Geurts, Koen +9 more
Recent planning for science and exploration missions has emphasized the high interest in the close investigation of small bodies in the Solar System. In particular in-situ observations of asteroids and comets play an important role in this field and will contribute substantially to our understanding of the formation and history of the Solar System…
Stability of spinning satellite under axial thrust and internal mass motion
Janssens, Frank L.; van der Ha, Jozef C.
This paper considers a spinning rigid body and a particle with internal motion under axial thrust. This model is helpful for gaining insights into the nutation anomalies that occurred near the end of orbit injections performed by STAR-48 rocket motors. The stability of this system is investigated by means of linearized equations about a uniform sp…
Rosetta visits asteroid (21)Lutetia
Ferri, P.; Lodiot, S.; Accomazzo, A. +3 more
The International Rosetta Mission, cornerstone of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, was launched on 2nd March 2004 to its 10 years journey to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta will reach the comet in summer 2014, orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few Kilometres and deliver the Lander Philae onto its surface. Afte…
Rosetta Lander—After seven years of cruise, prepared for hibernation
Ulamec, Stephan; Biele, Jens; Geurts, Koen +10 more
Rosetta is a Cornerstone Mission of the ESA Horizon 2000 programme. It is going to rendezvous with comet 67P/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…
Rosetta enters hibernation
Ferri, Paolo; Accomazzo, Andrea; Hubault, Armelle +3 more
The International Rosetta Mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 years journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta will reach the comet in 2014, orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometres and deliver the Lander Philae onto its surface. Following the fly-by of Asteroid (21-)Lutetia in 2010, Rosetta continue…
Precise modelling of solar and thermal accelerations on Rosetta
van der Ha, Jozef C.; Kato, Takahiro
This paper presents an analytical approach for the high-fidelity model of the accelerations induced by the Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP) and the Thermal Recoil Pressure (TRP) on ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft. The relevant gravitational forces that are induced by planets, moons, and asteroids can readily be incorporated for predicting interplanetary tr…