A few pics from the Rosetta Dedicated Control Room (DCR) here at ESOC just a few minutes ago (click on 'Full story' to view larger versions). -- Daniel

Spacecraft Operations Manager Andrea Accomazzo, left, Spacecraft Operations Engineer Sylvain Lodiot, on console, and Flight Operations Director Paolo Ferri, right.

SOM Accomazzo and SOE Lodiot discussing telemetry just arriving from Rosetta.

Lodiot, at left; SOE Armelle Hubault, seated at right. SOEs Jose Morales & Roberto Porta standing, at rear. 

A quick snap of 'Emergency Back-up Spacecraft Controller' Orville, seated on (the) console. We note with satisfaction that the flight control team have our blog open on their laptops while tracking Rosetta 360 million km from ESOC!

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Here in the Rosetta blog newsroom, we're working with Rita Schulz (to the left in the first picture), Project Scientist for Rosetta, and Gerhard Schwehm (picture below), Mission Manager. I’ve been talking to them both, asking for information on the mission and the instruments that will be working during the fly-by.

Rosetta was proposed as a mission to orbit a comet and place a lander on the surface. The asteroid observations were not confirmed until after orbit injection, when spacecraft operators realised that the fuel carried on board to be used for any initial orbit corrections would not be needed – orbit injection from the Ariane 5 launcher was perfect. Since the spacecraft was to pass through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter during its journey anyway, the Rosetta flight dynamics team proposed a portfolio of possible fly-by targets based on the extra fuel margin, and (2867) Steins and (21) Lutetia were selected for observation.

See full story for more information on the science observations.

--Amruta 

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Sabine Kielbassa, Rosetta Flight Dynamics specialist sent this in earlier. She and her colleague, Michael Flegel, put together this animation for us last night (click on image at left for full animated GIF).

The animation is composed of images taken once a day by NAVcam A between 25 August and 3 September. These images were used for the optical navigation campaign, as Rosetta followed Steins, refining its trajectory to close in on the asteroid.

The images have been adjusted so that the stars are of roughly the same brightness from day to day, although the exposure times decrease, and Steins becomes brighter as Rosetta appoaches.

--Amruta 

With all the excitement about the Rosetta Steins fly-by, it's easy to forget that there is a lot more going on today at ESA! Tonight, at 23:30 CEST - about 2.5 hours after Rosetta makes her closest approach - Jules Verne will undock from the ISS, marking the start of the end of the hugely successful ATV mission. Also today, the GOCE Mission Control Team at ESOC are in a simulation in the Main Control Room for the launch next week, on 10 September, of ESA's gravity satellite. Phew! -- Daniel

After the fly-by which is scheduled for 20:58 CEST ground time today, data will be downloaded through the night. Beginning at 12:00 CEST, there is a press conference here at the European Space Operations Centre. Access live streaming of the press conference on this page.

The stream begins at 11:55 CEST and ends at 13:20 CEST. There is an interesting line-up of talks by some of ESA's top scientists and engineers, who will convey their first impressions of the fly-by, sharing pictures and information transmitted back to Earth the night before. The agenda is available here.

--Amruta

Click on the link below for a very nice visualisation of the Steins flyby.

This comes to us courtesy of our colleagues at DLR (the German Aerospace Center) and Vega; it was created using a simulation tool developed by Vega for DLR, who is responsible for operating Rosetta's Philae lander. It provides a very good (and accurate) visualisation of what you'd see if you were riding on Rosetta tomorrow as she passed Steins - note the size of the asteroid is exaggerated (thanks, Zeina!).-- Daniel

Rosetta Steins flyby visualisation

Results from today's trajectory correction manouevre and the navigation image download are now being analysed by ESOC Flight Dynamics. We'll know later whether the last TCM slot tomorrow morning will be used.

Update @ 18:00 CEST - Just got a note from the Rosetta DCR - results from today's analysis show that tonmorrow's final TCM slot may not be needed. More details in the AM. -- Daniel

Today's TCM is now running!

I just had an update from ESA Spacecraft Operations Manager Andrea Accomazzo here at ESOC. He says today's target delta-v (change in velocity) is 11.8 cm/sec in the direction perpendicular to the line of flight. Everything on board the spacecraft is operating nominally, and the results if the TCM will be received (acquisition of signal) starting at 08:56 UT spacecraft time, which is 09:16 UT Earth receive time - which is 11:16 CEST (there's a 20-min one-way signal time at Rosetta's current distance from Earth).

The downlinked telemetry from this pass will include ranging data and more images as part of the still-ongoing optical navigation campaign.

The Flight Dynamics team here at ESOC will asses the results of today's TCM and later this afternoon let the Flight Control team know if the final TCM slot, Friday, just 12 hours prior to closest approach, will be used (click on 'Full story' for more details on today's TCM goals including a chart showing the target plane). -- Daniel

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We've got an expanded version of the Rosetta fly-by timeline that is in the main ESA website. At the time of closest approach (5 Sep 2008 20:58 CEST), Rosetta is planned to be 800 km from the asteroid, passing by at a speed of 8.6 km/s relative to Steins. Both Rosetta and Steins will be illuminated by the Sun, providing an excellent opportunity for scientific observations (full timeline after the jump). -- Daniel

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Clicking about the web this evening, I noticed a few nice links (many in languages other than English) from other bloggers to some of ESA's recent web articles on the upcoming flyby of Steins. You can see lots more via Google or Technorati via the links below. -- Daniel

Technorati

Google blog search

Welcome to the 'new' Rosetta Blog - covering the Steins fly-by on 5 September 2008 (and any subsequent Rosetta activities that we blog about). This new blog was set up - in our new multilingual blog content system - by the excellent ESA tech guys in Frascati, Italy (thanks, Stefan!).

If you are looking for the 'old' (first) Rosetta Blog, which covered the second Earth swing-by in November 2007, you can find it via the link below (there's also a permalink in the right-hand navigation bar). This blog resides in the old content system, and won't be updated any further - but it does include some **excellent** commentary, images and media, so is well worth a quick visit if you are new to the Rosetta family. -- Daniel

Old Rosetta Blog: http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37819