ESA Prepares To Celebrate Rosetta’s Asteroid Fly-by
The European Space Agency announced on Friday that the Rosetta space probe is set to pass within 802 km of asteroid Steins at 1958 GMT for an opportunity to capture glimpses of a rare E-type asteroid.
"It’s rare that we get to wave our own flag – spacecraft engineers are by nature extremely cautious folk,” said ESA spokesman Daniel Scuka.
"But on behalf of the entire Rosetta team, I really have to say it out loud: this is a fabulous result!"
Scientists hope to gain a better understanding of Stein as Rosetta will snap photos and take measurements of the irregular shaped asteroid.
Data will be sent to the ESA control room in Darmstadt, Germany.
The timing of Rosetta’s fly-by couldn’t be better as Stein will be illuminated by the Sun allowing it to capture clearer images.
Rosetta’s operations team opted not to switch on its thrusters on Friday – their last window of opportunity to adjust the craft’s trajectory.
"It’s confirmed the slot that was available 0500-0800 GMT this morning was not needed for any final correction maneuver," Mr Skuca wrote on the ESA’s Rosetta blog.
"The flight control team, the flight dynamics guys and the science operations team have all made Europe’s first optical navigation campaign a huge success."
Since 20 August the OSIRIS camera has been making regular observations of asteroid Steins as part of the optical navigation campaign. In addition a number of dedicated observations have been performed with this camera in order to characterize the light curve of the asteroid.
Starting September 1 the remaining instruments have been switched on, one-by-one, and they are now prepared for optimum operations during the fly by.
ESA is already preparing to celebrate, with a press conference scheduled on Saturday at 1100 GMT, when images from the asteroid will be unveiled to the world.
"Once we learn more about asteroids and comets, we have reached another big step in understanding how planets are formed, too," said Gerhard Schwehm, the Rosetta mission manager at ESA.
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Image Caption: Artist’s impression of the Rosetta spacecraft (ESA)
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