Rosetta Probe Awakens, Prepares To Chase Comet

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Rosetta Probe Awakens, Prepares To Chase Comet

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @06:36AM from the cue-benny-hill-music dept.

sciencehabit writes "The European comet-chasing probe Rosetta is up and running again today after it successfully roused itself from a 2½-year sleep and signaled anxious controllers on the ground. The spacecraft had been put into hibernation during the most distant part of its 10-year journey in pursuit of comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko because sunlight was too dim to keep its solar-powered systems running. Dozing in a slow stabilizing spin, Rosetta could not receive signals from the ground, so there was a risk that some problem might prevent it from responding to its preset alarm call at 10:00 GMT. Even then, there were many processes to go through before news reached Earth: The spacecraft's heaters would need to warm up its systems, its startrackers get a fix, boosters halt the spin, solar arrays turn towards the sun, and, finally, its communications antenna would need to point at Earth. It was not till 18:18 GMT that the signal was picked up by NASA's ground stations at Goldstone, California, and Canberra in Australia, and transmitted to the European Space Agency's (ESA's) control center at Darmstadt in Germany."

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Everything about this mission is a miracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 06:46 · Score: 5, Informative

The spacecraft wasn't designed to operate that far out in space and it wasn't designed to handle the comet it's chasing. That anything about the mission is going well at all since they blew their initial launch window and had to retarget is a miracle.
1. Re: Everything about this mission is a miracle by TheDarkMaster · 2014-01-21 06:52 · Score: 2
  
  Kudos to the over-enginnering and the respect to the murphy factor :-)
  
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2. Re:Everything about this mission is a miracle by Forty+Two+Tenfold · 2014-01-21 06:53 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  ...is a miracle.
  No. It's a successful exercise at fault tolerance.
  
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3. Re:Everything about this mission is a miracle by Last_Available_Usern · 2014-01-21 07:10 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Pffft, not impressed. I ran this same mission in Kerbal Space Program and it was a piece of cake.
4. Re:Everything about this mission is a miracle by mbone · 2014-01-21 07:19 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  AKA the billion Euro gamble. The Mars flyby was (if a much shorter blackout) considerably more dicey.
5. Re:Everything about this mission is a miracle by Metabolife · 2014-01-21 07:30 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  You've obviously never written 1000 lines of code and had it just "work" the first time. That's a miracle.
6. Re:Everything about this mission is a miracle by cusco · 2014-01-21 09:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Yeah, I know, replying to myself. I can't help remembering Voyager's 'Grand Tour' to the outer planets. Congress refused to approve a mission of that extent, instead NASA had to package it as a much shorter mission to Jupiter and Saturn. They (rather sneakily, for a government bureaucracy) launched during the only window that would allow the Grand Tour, and then went after supplemental funding for the supposedly "extended mission" they had planned for all along. Still amazes me that the Shrub White House tried to cancel the miniscule cost of continuing to monitor the spacecraft.
  
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7. Re:Everything about this mission is a miracle by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 20:03 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I never like that. There should be at least a couple simple stupid misplaced commas or something.
  Long code working instantly makes me nervous.
Not to diminish... by jomama717 · 2014-01-21 06:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

...but IMHO the curiosity landing makes anything like this that I read about seem like a cake walk. Still in complete awe of the team(s) that pulled that off.

Excited to see what Rosetta sends back!

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First Glitch by Freshly+Exhumed · 2014-01-21 06:48 · Score: 4, Funny

On wakeup an error in the MAKE COFFEE subroutine was discovered that has resulted in Rosetta being a bit grouchy.

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1. Re:First Glitch by Archangel+Michael · 2014-01-21 06:53 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  However, Earth based ground crew issued the "MAKE BACON" command which improved the mood.
  
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I have a new appreciation for this by scorp1us · 2014-01-21 06:49 · Score: 2

After playing Kerbal Space Program and doing a simple docking in Kerbin orbit. I also managed one in Mun orbit. And to think what they are doing with this comet is just amazing.

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1. Re:I have a new appreciation for this by rosseloh · 2014-01-21 07:14 · Score: 2
  
  Compared to a planet, a comet is tiny. You essentially need a perfect intercept to minimize the delta-v required to enter comet orbit. Then they have to stick the landing and keep the probe from flying off the surface.
  
  Gotta love KSP! I should look into modding in a tiny body like a comet just to test with. Someone on Reddit used Gilly as a comparable body for a "test run".
2. Re:I have a new appreciation for this by edremy · 2014-01-21 08:14 · Score: 2
  
  The most annoying thing about trying to land on a comet is that you can't timewarp past 1x anywhere close to it, and the gravity is so low it takes forever to actually land, or have your Kerbal come down after jumping.
  (Would be cool if they'd add a couple to KSP. I bet there's a mod that does)
  
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eh? by schneidafunk · 2014-01-21 06:52 · Score: 3, Interesting

Landing on a high-speed small comet versus a giant planet, seems more difficult to me.

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1. Re:eh? by dpilot · 2014-01-21 07:12 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Speed is relative, so is velocity. Rosetta is going to rendesvous with the comet, and go into orbit around it. At that point the speed and velocity will both be quite slow. I'm guessing that the biggest problem for the lander will be not bouncing off or floating away - there's next to no gravity.
  
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2. Re:eh? by wonkey_monkey · 2014-01-21 07:17 · Score: 2
  
  Landing on a high-speed small comet versus a giant planet, seems more difficult to me.
  Both targets will be/were travelling at close to relatively zero at landing time.
  The lack of gravity and atmosphere might make the comet easier.
  
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3. Re:eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-21 07:35 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Both targets will be/were travelling at close to relatively zero at landing time.
  That's how I would design a lander too.
4. Re:eh? by Rich0 · 2014-01-21 07:55 · Score: 2
  
  The lack of gravity and atmosphere might make the comet easier.
  Well, lack of atmosphere means that you need more propellant to equalize velocity. To land on a body with an atmosphere you have to just carry shielding and hit it at the right angle and the friction does the rest. The problem is that this gets you to terminal velocity and not zero velocity, and you don't want to hit the ground at terminal velocity.
  If you're going to intercept a body without an atmosphere you have to equalize speed with only the use of propellant, so that is a lot more mass to carry. However, you can do that in a much more orderly fashion so that when you get close to the body you're barely moving at all relative to it.
  So, both are challenging problems, but in different ways.
5. Re:eh? by evilviper · 2014-01-21 09:11 · Score: 2
  
  To land on a body with an atmosphere you have to just carry shielding and hit it at the right angle and the friction does the rest.
  Except Mars has such an incredibly thin atmosphere that a parachute needs to be impossibly large for a soft landing. The gravity is too high for a rocket-powered landing like on the moon. Not to mention that same thin atmosphere being thick enough that you also need a tough heat shield.
  
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6. Re:eh? by evilviper · 2014-01-21 12:41 · Score: 2
  
  No, that would be why they have to combine several of the above methods to even get a HARD landing. And yes, Mars has proven to be the most difficult body to land on... Only the US has managed it, and not at an impressive success rate, either.
  
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The Path of Rosetta since launch by idji · 2014-01-21 07:23 · Score: 5, Informative

Here is a beautiful interactive 3D simulation of how Rosetta got to where it is now. Where is Rosetta?. Video
The choreography of the Earth, Mars, Earth, Earth slingshots is just amazing.
Here is the complex orbits to come of Rosetta around the comet Orbit around Comet