Successful Rosetta Lift-Off

CrystalFalcon writes "The BBC is reporting that the Rosetta spacecraft has had a successful lift-off after a two cancelled launch attempts. Rosetta is targeted at a near-Earth comet, and features a 'lander.' The European Space Agency has more information on the mission."

Comments

Re:TOUCHDOWN!!!

[tiled_rainbows]

From the article:

This will set the spacecraft on its long Solar System journey that will take around the Sun four times, around Mars once (2007), the Earth three times (2005, 2007, 2009), and into the asteroid belt twice.

My celestial mechanics aren't all that hot, but wouldn't the probe maybe get there a bit quicker if it used a more direct route? It's going to be passing back this way in 2009? WTF?

Okay, okay, I imagine that it's all to do with "Slingshotting" off of various planets etc. to build up speed, like some insanely complex snooker trick-shot (like that bit in Red Dwarf where Lister pots the comet into the black hole), but wouldn't it be a helluva lot quicker if ESA had stuck an ion engine or something onto the probe, like they're doing with the SMART moon mission? Why didn't they? I mean, even if it added a few years onto the development time, wouldn't it have got there quicker?