Wake Up Rosetta!

Date: Tue, Jan 14, 2014 | 07:00 - 07:15 GMT | 08:00 - 08:15 CET

Replay: Tue, Jan 14, 2014 | 17:00 - 17:15 GMT | 18:00 - 18:15 CET

Type: ESA TV Exchange

Format: 16:9

After a 10 years journey through space Rosetta will  arrive near its goal in 2014: the comet P67/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

ESA’s Rosetta mission was launched on 2 March 2004 on an Ariane 5 from Kourou, French Guiana.

The long distance haul of its flight took Rosetta up to 800 million kilometres away from the Sun and despite its 30-metres long solar arrays there is not enough sunlight to produce enough electricity to power the spacecraft and all of its subsystems when it is more than 600 million kilometres from the Sun, therefore Rosetta was put into hibernation more than two years ago.

Only its computer and some heaters remained switched on to get it through the ‘cold’ and wake it up on 20 January 2014.

Before this important event this video explains what will happen this year for Rosetta.

A fantastic scenario : Rosetta will be the first space probe accompanying a comet to witness how it changes while approaching the Sun. It will also be the first mission to dispatch a lander on the surface of a comet nucleus.

The 18 months of observations from a close orbit combined with the in situ investigations of the Philae Lander on the surface will result in a detailed knowledge of the nucleus and the coma of the comet.

Preview and download:
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2014/01/Rosetta_Wake_up_VNR

Script:
EbS95714.doc

Satellite Parameters: Eutelsat 9A at 9 degrees E, transponder 59, downlink frequency 11900.1 horizontally polarised, symbol rate 27,500 FEC 2/3.