04 March 2004 13:47

Rosetta Added to Launch Record at ESOC

The ignition of the EPS occurred 107 minutes after launch at 09:14 and was monitored from a ground station in Hawaii until the vehicle moved out of contact. Contact was made again from the Galliot station in Kourou and at 09:32:36 Arianespace announced the separation of Rosetta. The achieved orbit proved to be near perfect.

There was great joy and excitement in the ESOC control centre when the ESA Kourou ground station acquired the TM signal from Rosetta one minute later at 09:34. The spacecraft status was as expected and the automatic separation sequence was seen to be in progress. The venting and priming of the propulsion system was completed at 9:44.

Activation and Checkout

The initial spacecraft spin rate reduction and Sun acquisition phase proceeded very smoothly, and this was followed by the deployment of the two solar array panels, which was completed at 10:11. The separation sequence was completed with Sun reacquisition.

2 March 2004

The launch locks of the Lander Philae have been released successfully at the end of the first ground station pass. Philae now remains firmly attached to the spacecraft by the cruise latches until its release at the comet.

3 March 2004

Due to the excellent spacecraft performance and the good progress of planned activities, it is anticipated to advance some of the planned platform and payload commissioning.

This completed a very successful first phase of the mission. The spacecraft has behaved very much as expected. Both the Rosetta spacecraft and ground segment continued to perform excellently.

Orbit Trajectory

The spacecraft is travelling at a relative speed of 15 000 kmh^-1 away from the Earth and it has passed a distance of 700 000 km. The specialists at ESOC have completed the initial orbit determination and confirmed the excellent injection to orbit by the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. The resulting orbital elements are as follows:

NOTE: All times are in UT

Rosetta Mission Control Team