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Mission to Harpoon Comet is Back on Track

Posted by michael on from the go-go-go dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Rosetta mission planners have announced today that after an indefinite launch delay earlier this year, their goal of landing on a comet is back on track. Their new baseline target is a rendezvous with the comet, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in November 2014. En route to the comet, Rosetta will inspect two asteroids (Otawara and Siwa) at close quarters."

7 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dumbest idea EVAR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    uh, gravity man.

    Remember, acceleration is a vector. Thus, it's a direction and speed. The direction the earth is traveling through space is always changing, thus it's always accelerating.

    Although, yes it's speed (which is a scalar) is pretty much constant.

    High School Physics: Anything traveling in a circular pattern in always accelerating, although it's speed may be constant.

  2. Re:Dumbest idea EVAR by RyatNrrd · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes. Centripetal force. The Earth is constantly changing direction (as it orbits), which means its velocity (speed with direction) is constantly changing. Change in velocity / time = acceleration. The direction of acceleraton is towards the sun.

  3. Re:Tip for NASA by reddish · · Score: 3, Informative

    Rosetta is an ESA project - metric system all the way. That doesn't guarantee a succesful Ariane-5 launch, unfortunately :-)

  4. Re:Dumbest idea EVAR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's called gravity.

    If we weren't accelerating, we'd be going in a straight line. Acceleration is a change in velocity, velocity is speed AND direction, so a change in direction counts. I.e. a circular orbit requires constant acceleration.

  5. Re:Implications for Life development... by 73939133 · · Score: 4, Informative

    we could have been to Mars and back 3 times by then (and I hope we will have)

    We will have. There are several Mars missions in progress, including sample return missions (see here).

    However, if there were manned Mars missions planned, we wouldn't have any money left for all this neat science.

    The sooner we get ourselves (and more importantly, all our heavy, polluting industry) off this planet, the better.

    Going into space won't help with that. Conserving energy and resources, family planning, and other measures will.

  6. Re:I don't know dude... by ldspartan · · Score: 2, Informative

    "... and fewer people die in it."

    When was the last manned European space flight?

    --
    lds

  7. So many feet to choose from... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    foot 0.3048
    US survey foot 0.3048006096012
    modified American foot 0.3048122529845
    Clarke's foot 0.3047972651151
    Indian foot (Clarke) 0.3047995102481
    foot (Sears) 0.3047994715387