We've switched to a new blog system and we will not be updating this old one any longer. To follow Rosetta's Steins fly-by, surf over to the new URL above.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=38008Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:22:00This poem was sent in this morning by Stuart Atkinson, a strong supporter of Rosetta and space in general. Thanks, Stuart!

Two worlds of eye-widening wonder
my cameras have now seen. One green
and blue, poles newly dusted fresh cream white,
the other a rusted, dusty place, its ancient
Time-worn weary face pitted with craters,
one for every star that shines in its frigid, rose-tinged sky.

Barsoom loomed before me first;
its ochre-coated globe rolling
past in sullen silence as I flashed by,
spying on its rock-strewn plains
of gold and yawning canyons grand.
Mars' shifting cinnamon sands shone
lantern-bright in the endless empty night
that has become my life
and through my outstretched solar wings
I caught a fleeting glimpse of proud Olympus,
a cloudy scarf of cirrus wrapped around its lofty peak.

Months of dreamless sleep then.
Mars a delicious, distant memory,
leaving me to search the sea of dark
for a single sapphire spark lost in Sol's
fierce glare. Then there she was -
a sickle blade of blue, a wicked scythe
of living light so bright against the black;
no turning back now, Earth's crescent
suddenly huge before me with the lights
of her sleeping towns and cities glittering
on her lovely face, sequins glinting
on an ebony cloak as I raced past,
faster than the meteors that dashed
themselves against her warming atmosphere
as I speared on my way, saying goodbye
to the blue skies of Earth and, closing my tired eyes,
fell into that deep sleep again...

From this point on, we'll publish news plus science results that we receive from any of the Rosetta instrument teams/principal investigators on the main ESA Portal, in the Rosetta section: http://www.esa.int/rosetta

The spacecraft's next way-points in the solar system will be:

• 5 Sep 2008 - Fly-by Asteroid Steins
• 13 Nov 2009 - 3rd (and final) Earth swing-by
• 10 Jul 2010 - Fly-by Asteroid Lutetia

We are looking forward to blogging future ESA events, including the upcoming Columbus lab delivery to the ISS (scheduled for 6 December) and we are also looking forward to receiving your future comments and queries via our blog. I hope that this site can grow into a very dynamic and interactive feedback channel that helps us get news, facts and cool results out to the Web in a fast, informal and readable way.

BTW: if you haven't seen our (relatively) new 'ESApod' channel on YouTube yet, point your browser to: http://www.youtube.com/esapod. Our channel editor at ESA/ESRIN, Francesca, has selected and uploaded a super line-up of videos and animations covering ESA missions and programmes, and we're getting a growing level of traffic. She's recently posted:

• Voyage to Mars - confinement simulation
• ISS update October 2007
• Soccer robots in space

]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37994Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:14:00Yesterday evening, the OSIRIS science team led by Dr Horst Uwe Keller at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research sent in a fantastic composite image received from OSIRIS. Click on 'full story' for link to full-size image.

ESA ©2007 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37991Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:16:00http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37976Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:13:00The first two images received from OSIRIS - Rosetta's Optical Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System.

Links to full-size images are in the full post.

Go direct to our mini gallery here - Now with all images!.

The images were received on Earth early in the morning of 14 November, and were processed by the Flight Dynamics section at ESOC; Ulrich Herfort sent the final images to us just a few minutes ago.

A full article with expanded captions and more information will be posted on the ESA Web portal shortly. -- Daniel]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37961Wed, 14 Nov 2007 08:50:00This animated sequence, generated using the NASA Solar System simulator, shows Rosetta's orbit (green) from 1 July 2007 through 31 March 2008, in a top view of the inner Solar System. The second Earth swing-by on 13 November is shown from Rosetta's perspective in the middle of the sequence, for a period of 10 hours around closest approach, which was 21:57 CET 13 November.

This animation shows clearly why the illumination conditions on approach were poor, in contrast to the situation on departure - when the Earth was fully illuminated by the Sun.

The version below is posted via YouTube; you can download full-resolution versions via the ESA RSSD portal.

PS: Access the full ESA channel on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/esapod

]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37957Wed, 14 Nov 2007 08:04:00http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37955Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:23:00We're waiting for a couple of processes to play out right now.

First off, we did get data overnight during Rosetta's New Norcia ground station pass. The OSIRIS image data is now being analysed and processed by the OSIRIS science team at the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research) in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany. There's no word yet on the number or quality of images, etc., but we're hoping to hear shortly.

Next, we also received NAV cam (navigation camera) images from Rosetta. These were taken by the the on-board navigation camera, and are lower-resolution, black&white pictures. We've already seen the raw output, and we're just waiting for confirmation from the ESOC Flight Dynamics team as to the time and location they were taken before we post.

Click here for a detailed listing of the current science-gathering and data-download activities.

Time for a coffee here at 07:20AM CET!!! -- Daniel]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37951Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:05:00Here are a few pictures showing some of the follow-up now happening in the DCR. The team is quite pleased, but we've now got a full night of data downloads and additional ground station passes to retreive science data that Rosetta gathered in the past few hours.

More posts tomorrow! -- Daniel

Access quickie album here.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37945Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:27:00At 22:24 CET, Rosetta is talking to us via the NASA Goldstone antenna, all is going well - yippieh!

PS: Happy Armelle, the lady who prepared the science phase, says "Hello" to Glenn : )]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37940Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:13:00We've just gotten confirmation from NASA's Goldstone station that they've acquired signals from Rosetta! Swing-by is going beautifully...

By the way: We've got an animation of the swing-by, available as a MOV file (open with Quicktime or another player not Win Media):

Right-click here and 'Save as..']]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37939Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:10:00]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37938Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:09:00... still waiting (click on 'full story' link)]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37937Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:03:00Everyone's just waiting now... (click on 'full story' link)]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37934Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:58:00http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37929Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:55:00Marco and I just sat in on a quick update interview with SOM Andrea Accomazzo. He gives a quick update on Rosetta's location and what is happening with the swing-by process itself. Everything seems to be on track, and I can tell that everyone's getting a bit more excited as we get closer to 21:57 CET.

Click here for the video (.mov - right-click and 'Save as..' then playback with Apple Quicktime or almost any other video player except Windows Media player)]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37932Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:52:00Several members of the local German media have arrived at ESOC now to see what's happening.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37931Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:46:00We've just received word that the Santiago station (University of Santiago) has received a signal from Rosetta! This means all is on track!!! 10 Mins to closest approach...

Photo shows Andrea Accomazzo getting word by phone just a few moments ago...]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37930Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:39:00This image of Rosetta was captured last night by an amateur astronomer in Italy and now appears on the website of the CCAF Observatory; it was was forwarded to us by one of the scientists working on the VIRTIS instrument team.

The path of Rosetta is shown in this time-lapse image as a streak running down to the right, approximately at the middle of the image.

Original post is on the CCAF site here]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37928Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:10:00A quick follow-up on my earlier 'Team' post.

Rene Laureijs, one of the Rosetta scientists, and Kristin Wirth, the Rosetta Science Operations Manager, are also 'on duty' - at ESTEC, ESA's Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Rene just emailed: "Rene and I are sitting at ESTEC following the Earth swing-by. We are on call in case our assistance is needed for the experiment operations. Attached you find a foto of us with our simulation tool - it is taken with a mobile phone, thus the quality is not great. But maybe you want to put in onto the Rosetta blog anyway. Note Rene's tie!" :-)]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37921Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:54:00A really big part of operating and controlling all of our missions here at ESOC - the European Space Operations Centre - involves the ground stations.

The ESA ground station network - the 8-station ESTRACK system (lots of information on ESTRACK here) - is operated from the ESTRACK Control Centre (ECC) (in the building next door to where we are today), and there are operator/engineers on duty 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week. The stations themselves are unmanned normally, and are remote controlled from here; the stations are staffed during critical operations (New Norcia is staffed today for the Rosetta swing-by) and the operators here are in voice contact with the individual station control rooms.

I just walked over to see what's happening and grab a quick video - they are doing some work tonight tracking Chang'e-1 via the ESTRACK station at Kourou (this campaign started earlier this month); I grabbed my quick video - you can hear them talking to Kourou - and the end of the video shows the data presently coming down from Rosetta via NNO - the ESTRACK station at New Norcia.

Click here for the video (.mpg - right-click and 'Save as..' then playback with Win Media Player or Quicktime)]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37920Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:31:00Rosetta SOM Andrea Accomazzo's lovely wife has just dropped off a fantastic 'Rosetta Pizza' - showing Rosetta at the point of closest approach - swinging over the Earth. We can confirm: there's nothing better than home-made Italian pizza on a super-busy swing-by evening! -- Daniel]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37919Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:16:00A couple of quick snaps of the Rosetta Dedicated Control Room. Here, Flight Director Paolo Ferri (seated, at right) briefs members of the Flight Control Team. Taken at 19:15 CET.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37918Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:54:00I just spoke with Andrea Accomazzo, the SOM (Spacecraft Operations Manager) in the Rosetta Dedicated Control Room (DCR) here at ESOC. As of 18:45 CET (17:45 UTC).

Here's a quick run-down on current activities:

• Rosetta is now 120 995 km from Earth (and closing!) with a one-way travel time for radio signals of 0.4 seconds (see image of real-time tracking data)
• VIRTIS (Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) is cooling down, to lower the temperature of the imaging CCD in preparation for imaging starting at 21:00 CET (20:00 UTC)
• The slew (change in orientation of the spacecraft) into Earth-pointing mode starts at 19:00 CET (18:00 UTC)
• OSIRIS - the orbiter's camera - starts imaging the Earth at 20:00 UTC (19:00 UTC) - it is scheduled to track and image the night side of the Earth limb (the border or outermost edge of the apparent disk of the Earth)

L.-R.: Monica Talevi, ESA Science Communications Coordinator, based at ESTEC in the Netherlands; Amruta Mehta, ESA Science editor, also based at ESTEC; Daniel Scuka, ESA Operations editor at ESOC; and Marco Valentini, our cool graphics guy from ESRIN in Italy.

Of course, our German-language editor, Eva Hassel von Pock, also based here at ESOC in the Communication Office, is on-site for the German version of the blog.

Finally: A big thanks to everyone on the ESA web and communications team lending support, including the folks at ESRIN and here at ESOC. -- Daniel]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37916Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:23:00

View Larger Map

Also, here's a link to the KMZ file that will take you to each of the three locations involved this evening - ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany, the New Norcia ESTRACK station in Australia and the point of closest approach. -- Daniel

Google Earth KMZ]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37912Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:32:00http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37906Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:54:00Last night, several members of the Starkenburg-Sternwarte (Starkenburg Star Watching club), in Heppenheim, Germany - just a few kilometres from us here at ESOC - were out and they spotted Rosetta!

The image shows Rosetta at 22:00 UTC (23:00 CET) indicated as a small, pale dot (see the red line) against the background of the star field, and the two images clearly show the spacecraft's relative movement as it swings in toward Earth (animated GIF and more details under the 'full article' link below).]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37904Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:41:00Jenna Wortham, at Wired (USA) has just published a nice backgrounder on the interesting, uhm, cargo, that Rosetta is carrying:

In 2004, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta Space Probe, which holds a copy of the Rosetta Disk, a 15,000 page archive of more than 1,000 human languages. The disk launch is a collaboration with the Rosetta Project, an organization that works to preserve the world's languages. According to their site, as much as 90% of the world's linguistic diversity will disappear within the next century.

Today's Wired article here.

Original article (2002) 'Rosetta disk goes back to the future' on ESA RSSD portal here.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37903Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:17:00We've just posted an ESApod audio Podcast on the ESA website that I recorded this morning with Andrea Accomazzo, the Rosetta SOM (follow this post's 'full story' link to access the ESApod).

Andrea said that in the past few weeks, during the tracking campaign, ESA used NASA DSN (deep space network) stations at Goldstone and Madrid to track Rosetta; the campaign helped to determine her trajectory with high accuracy and, in part, know what would be needed for the trajectory correction manoeuvres (TCMs - basically, firing the engine) that were conducted in October.

During the swing-by itself, ESA will use its own ESTRACK 35m deep-space station at New Norcia, Australia, which is normally dedicated to Rosetta, for operations.

The New Norcia (NNO) station is ESA's first 'deep space station' - the second, opened in 2005 for Venus Express, is at Cebreros (CEB) in Spain. We don't have a webcam of NNO, but we do have one of the very similar Cebreros station.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37900Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:38:00http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37887Fri, 9 Nov 2007 16:51:00Dr Gerhard Schwehm was at ESOC today, and I asked him, What has been the biggest challenge so far in this second Earth swing-by?

He said that, actually, there have been no major problems to overcome. "Running Rosetta is fairly routine, now, and most of the work to get ready for the swing-by for both the operations team and the science team is done," he added.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37870Fri, 9 Nov 2007 11:45:00After the trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM) at 19:06 CEST on 18 October, Rosetta achieved a near-perfect orbit for next week's swing-by. A trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM) refers to firing the spacecraft's engine, typically to speed up or slow down the spacecraft, or to change its direction.

As a result, the additional TCM slots that were available on 1 November and yesterday, 8 November, were not used, and the Rosetta Spacecraft Operations Manager (SOM), Andrea Accomazzo, said just now that no more engine burns will be required.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37866Fri, 9 Nov 2007 09:19:00full listing of questions and answers (Q&A) available this morning on the ESA Portal. The answers were researched by our colleagues at ESTEC. Some of the top ones are:

Is there any risk of crashing into Earth, or to bumping into one of the satellites currently in orbit around Earth?

Current trajectory calculations show that Rosetta is right on track, so there's no such risk. Bumping into a satellite, or an interception in space is very difficult to achieve even intentionally.

Satellites are objects a few square metres in size moving at high velocities in orbits that are millions or even thousands of millions of cubic kilometres large. Despite this, to be sure, the Flight Dynamics team checks if Rosetta is on a collision course with any spacecraft in Earth orbit (which are all catalogued).

The risk of bumping into another spacecraft is therefore negligible.

Last post for this evening as it's past 21:00 here in CET and we've got a busy few days ahead of us. -- Daniel Scuka]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37864Thu, 8 Nov 2007 20:55:00A detailed update article - giving a time-line of major activities between now and 15 November - was published a couple hours ago on the ESA portal. According to the article: "Closest approach will take place on 13 November 2007 at 21:57 CET, at which time Rosetta will speed past at 45 000 km/h (about 12.5 km/s) relative to Earth. At this time, Rosetta will be 5301km above the Pacific Ocean, south-west of Chile, at 63° 46' South and 74° 35' West."]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37863Thu, 8 Nov 2007 19:49:00SpaceEurope blog, also says he'll provide focus coverage in the coming days. ]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37855Thu, 8 Nov 2007 16:43:00The file link (see full post) gives the position of the Rosetta spacecraft in the sky, in the so-called celestial coordinates (Right Ascension and Declination) which allows finding Rosetta's position between the stars.]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37850Thu, 8 Nov 2007 16:02:00Ephemerides (Wikipedia) is a term used by astronomers that refers to the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times. Basically, it's a table of numbers that tell astronomers on the ground where to look to find an object in the sky.

We'll put the info together and try to get a post up in an hour or so - and anyone who has a telescope in the backyard can start planning to spot Rosetta on approach.

-- Daniel Scuka]]>http://webservices.esa.int/page.php?id=37826Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:00:00Welcome on board ESA's Rosetta swing-by blog. We're looking forward to covering the second Earth swing-by of Rosetta, ESA's Comet Chaser, starting this Friday. Rosetta is scheduled to make its closest approach to Earth at 21:57 CET, Tuesday, 13 November 2007.]]>