|
|
| Rosetta Ready to Explore A Comet's Realm |
| ESA's comet chaser will soon be heading towards a new target, known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, but the mission team is confident that a rich scientific bonanza awaits when Rosetta arrives at its destination in the summer of 2014. |
| Date: 12 Jan 2004 |
|
|
| Rosetta Ready to Land on a Larger Comet |
| With the launch of ESA's comet chaser scheduled for February 2004, the Rosetta team has been racing to meet a new challenge - a change of target. |
| Date: 28 Oct 2003 |
|
|
| ESA confirms Rosetta's new target but identifies financial challenge for the mission |
| Following an intensive campaign of technical and scientific investigations, the ESA Science Programme Committee has confirmed that its comet-chasing mission Rosetta will now set its sights on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. However, the putative February 2004 launch date cannot be fixed until the ESA Council has found a solution to the lack of cash in its Science Programme immediate budget. |
| Date: 02 Jun 2003 |
|
|
| New destination for Rosetta, Europe's comet chaser |
| Comet-chasing mission Rosetta will now set its sights on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. During its meeting on 13-14th May 2003, ESA's Science Programme Committee decided Rosetta's new mission baseline. The spacecraft will be launched in February 2004 from Kourou, French Guiana, using an Ariane-5 G+ launcher.
The rendezvous with the new target comet is expected in November 2014.
|
| Date: 28 May 2003 |
|
|
| Looking for life of any shape or form |
| On 25 April 25 1953, James D. Watson and Francis H. Crick published an historic paper in Nature that would change the fate of modern science. They proposed that DNA, the molecule of complex life forms, had the shape of a double helix. Today, scientists from all areas are working together to answer the ultimate question: can life (in any shape or form) exist anywhere else in the Universe? |
| Date: 01 May 2003 |
|
|
| ESA INFO 6-2003 ESA's Rosetta mission, a status report |
| Following the decision not to launch Europe's comet chaser, Rosetta, in January 2003, scientists and engineers in the programme have been examining several alternative mission scenarios. |
| Date: 21 Mar 2003 |
|
|
| ESA's new challenge with Rosetta |
| After the initial disappointment of postponing the Rosetta mission, ESA's Director of Science David Southwood expressed his firm determination to accept the delay and take it on as a galvanising challenge. |
| Date: 21 Jan 2003 |
|
|
| ESA PR 4-2003 Rosetta launch postponed |
| Having considered the conclusions of the Review Board set up to advise on the launch of Rosetta, Arianespace and the European Space Agency have decided on a postponement. |
| Date: 14 Jan 2003 |
|
|
| ESA INFO 1-2003 Rosetta - a comet ride to solve planetary mysteries |
| ESA's Rosetta will be the first mission to orbit and land on a comet. Comets are icy bodies that travel throughout the Solar System and develop a characteristic tail when they approach the Sun. Rosetta is scheduled to be launched on-board an Ariane-5 rocket in January 2003 from Kourou, French Guiana. |
| Date: 08 Jan 2003 |
|
|
| Announcement of Rosetta launch delay |
| The launch date for Rosetta, ESA's mission to a comet, has been delayed by a few days. |
| Date: 06 Jan 2003 |
|
|
| Rosetta fuelled for the journey of a lifetime |
| Just as motor vehicles need fuelling before long journeys, so spacecraft require full tanks before they set off to visit other worlds. But whereas a typical car may carry 40 or 50 litres of petrol and then be refuelled after travelling a few hundred kilometres, there are no filling stations in space. |
| Date: 18 Dec 2002 |
|
|
| Rosetta disk goes back to the future |
| What have a comet-chasing spacecraft, a 2200-year-old volcanic rock and a global language archive got in common? The answer: not only are all of them
named 'Rosetta', but all three offer a bridge through time, creating an
enduring link across the millennia.
|
| Date: 04 Dec 2002 |
|
|
| Review Board gives green light for Rosetta |
| With less than two months to launch, ESA's Rosetta comet chaser is undergoing final preparations at Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. Confidence is high after the green light was given by the Rosetta Mission Flight Readiness Review Board on 13 November 2002. |
| Date: 21 Nov 2002 |
|
|
| Success for Rosetta's transatlantic link |
| With less than three months to go before Rosetta lifts off from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, engineers from ESA, Alenia and Astrium are working feverishly to ensure that Europe's comet chaser meets its narrow launch window in January 2003. |
| Date: 29 Oct 2002 |
|
|
| ESA's good-natured DevILS |
| The European Space Agency (ESA) has started a 50-million-euro initiative to bring together Europe's leading aerospace companies for the next four years. The aim of DevILS is to develop 'intelligent', lightweight spacecraft systems that ESA can use on future missions. Having these 'plug-and-play' systems will allow Europe to create lighter spacecraft that perform better. |
| Date: 24 Oct 2002 |
|
|
| At that star, turn left! |
| Our bodies contain proteins that are made of smaller molecules that can be either left- or right-handed, depending upon their structure. Regardless of which hand we use to write, however, all human beings are 'left-handed' at the molecular level. Life on Earth uses the left-handed variety and no one knows how this preference crept into living systems. In 2012, ESA's Rosetta lander will land on a comet to investigate, among other things, if the origin of this preference lies in the stars. |
| Date: 16 Oct 2002 |
|
|
| Challenges of landing on alien worlds |
| Three ESA missions are due to send down robotic 'spaceprobes' when they arrive at their alien destinations. Since these craft will be going where no one has gone before, how can scientists be sure what it will be like down there? How do you ensure that your spaceprobe is prepared for anything? |
| Date: 10 Oct 2002 |
|
|
| Major award for the 'Father of Rosetta' |
| The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS), the largest division of the American Astronomical Society, has announced that its prestigious Gerard P. Kuiper Prize has been awarded to Rosetta Interdisciplinary Scientist, Dr Eberhard Gr|n. |
| Date: 08 Oct 2002 |
|
|
| Rosetta arrives in South America |
| The final leg of Rosetta's four-year race to the launch pad has now begun. After a 6500 km trip across the Atlantic Ocean, ESA's comet chaser arrived safely yesterday evening at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. The feverish activity to prepare the unique spacecraft for its January launch has now transferred from the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, to the tropical jungle of South America. |
| Date: 13 Sep 2002 |
|
|
| Timing is critical as launch windows approach |
| There will be greater tension than usual among engineers and scientists at Europe's spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, in January 2003, as they gather to see ESA's comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta departing on its long journey. If it is to keep its rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen in 2012, Rosetta must lift off on its Ariane-5 launcher no sooner than 03:40 CET on 13 January 2003 and no later than the end of that month. |
| Date: 05 Sep 2002 |
|
|
