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| | | | | | | Rosetta Steins fly-by confirmed
Artist’s impression of Rosetta as it flies by asteroid Steins
5 September 2008
The Rosetta control room at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre, ESOC, received the first radio signal after closest approach to asteroid (2867) Steins at 22:14 CEST, confirming a smooth fly-by.
Closest approach took place at 20:58 CEST ground time, 20:38 CEST spacecraft time, at a distance of 800 km. Rosetta’s relative speed with respect to Steins was 8.6 km/sec, or about 31 000 km/h. The exact time of closest approach will be confirmed over the next few days after a detailed analysis of telemetry data.
To optimise the science return from this historic encounter, a series of critical operations were executed before closest approach, some of which required the spacecraft flip over and change its orientation rapidly, pushing it to its design limits.
| | | Animation of asteroid (2867) Steins |
After the flip, at 20:39 CEST (ground time), Rosetta switched to the asteroid fly-by mode, during which its orientation was automatically controlled by the on-board navigation cameras. The asteroid was tracked continuously and kept it in the field of view of the imaging instruments.
At 20:48 CEST (ground time), while still in asteroid fly-by mode, Rosetta’s high gain antenna was turned away from Earth and the science observations were carried out. Radio contact established again at 22:14 CEST and the first bit of telemetry was received through NASA’s Goldstone antenna.
| | Rosetta’s trajectory towards asteroid Steins | |
Science data download will start tomorrow morning, 6 September at about 02:00 CEST and continue through the night. Images and the preliminary results from the fly-by will be presented tomorrow at a press conference which be held at ESOC starting at 12:00 CEST. The press conference will be streamed on the web at www.esa.int/rosetta.
Rosetta flight control team: watching acquisition of signal from the spacecraft, 22:14 CEST 5 September
... and celebration!
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| | Rosetta Blog ESA's comet chaser Spacecraft Operations ESOC Related articles Watch this space: Rosetta press conference liveRosetta press conference live streamRosetta Blog now liveRosetta Steins fly-by timelineRosetta spacecraft meets asteroid SteinsFor the media Media Press KitRosetta factsheet (pdf)In depth Rosetta in depthRelated links AstriumDLR Rosetta special
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