The Rosetta mission Matt Taylor, ESA Project Scientist The Rosetta mission • Solar System and comets • Comet observations • Rosetta and 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko • Where are we now? Gas/Plasma tail Dust tail Comet motion Nucleus Coma To Sun 15 km Hale-Bopp, 1997 credit: ESO Halley, ESA/MPAE, 1986, 1996 6 July 2011 - Solar Dynamics Observatory • Spacecraft Visits to Comets (imaged) • The Halley Armada Giotto, Vega 1 and 2, Suisei, Sakigake • Deep Space 1 (Borrelly) • Stardust (Wild 2) • Deep Impact (Tempel 1) • EPOXI (Hartley 2) • Rosetta (C-G) Fly by’s - 100’s km 10’s km/s • Spacecraft Visits to Comets (imaged) • The Halley Armada Giotto, Vega 1 and 2, Suisei, Sakigake • Deep Space 1 (Borrelly) • Stardust (Wild 2) • Deep Impact (Tempel 1) • EPOXI (Hartley 2) • Rosetta (C-G) << 100 km at m/s The Rosetta Stone Philae temple of Isis a"er%the%delivery%of%Ptolemy%FM% Klim Churyumov, Jean-Jacques Dordain (ESA), & Svetlana Gerasimenko at Rosetta launch Discovery 1969 Perihelion 1.2458 AU Snodgrass et al., 2014 Aphelion 5.6839 AU Orbital 6.45 yr Lamy et al., 2007 Near closest approach at 1,000km, February 25, 2007 / ESA NavCAM image on March 4, 2005 / ESA Eastwood et al., JGR, 2011 Edberg et al., 2009a+b thanks N. Howes Hurley et al., 2014 Copyright ESA 2011 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA and Yuri Beletsky / ESO 20 January 2014 Target: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Target: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Hathor ESA/ROSETTA/OSIRIS Thomas et al., Science, Vol 347, 2015 ‘Cheops’ ESA/ROSETTA/NAVCAM ESA/ROSETTA/OSIRIS ‘Cheops’ ESA/ROSETTA/NAVCAM ESA/ROSETTA/OSIRIS 7 September 2014 8 October 2014 ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA ESA/Rosetta/OSIRIS ESA/Rosetta/Philae/Rolis ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM Touchdown within 120m 15:34:06 ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA ! Andrew Baxter Rosetta is the first mission to shadow a comet, travelling at a relative walking pace with respect to the comet. It has delivered Philae to the comet to get ground truth from insitu measurements. It has, is and will continue to provide the most detailed study of a comet during its closest approach to the Sun It has also captured the imagination of millions and hopefully inspired many future scientists and engineers @ESA_Rosetta http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/ August 2015 Perihelion December 31, 2015 Nominal end-of-mission.