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| Rosetta Lander springs into action |
| A major landmark in the Rosetta development programme will be reached this
week when the final tests on the Structural Thermal Model (STM) are
completed.
Since last year, the 3 tonne STM has been subjected to an extensive series
of tests at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in
The Netherlands, in order to ensure that the spacecraft can survive the
rigours of interplanetary space travel. The final sequence of checks began
on 2 May when an emergency separation test was conducted on the Rosetta
Lander. |
| Date: 09 May 2000 |
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| Rosetta STM feels hot and cold all over |
| After more than two weeks of being boiled and then frozen, the Rosetta spacecraft has
shown that it can withstand the extreme temperatures to be encountered on
its 11 year odyssey to Comet Wirtanen.
On 16 April, the Rosetta Structural Thermal Model (STM) completed a
prolonged series of tests in the Large Space Simulator, a giant thermal-vacuum chamber at the European
Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) at Noordwijk in The
Netherlands. Preliminary results show that the spacecraft behaved as
expected, and engineers are confident that ESA's comet chaser will be able
to survive successfully its journey beyond the asteroid belt and back. |
| Date: 03 May 2000 |
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| New Louvers ensure that Rosetta is real cool |
| Imagine leaving home for 11 years, to embark on a trek which will take you from the frozen wastes of Antarctica to the sizzling deserts of Arabia. Working out how to survive such extreme temperature variations would be a major headache.
A similar problem is facing the designers of ESAs Rosetta comet chaser. In the early and late stages of its prolonged expedition, the spacecraft will sweep across the inner Solar System, where sunlight is plentiful. However, in order to rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen, Rosetta will have to probe beyond the asteroid belt, more than 5 times the Earths distance from the Sun. In those frigid regions, the solar energy levels are only 4% of the those that we enjoy on our balmy planet.
|
| Date: 23 Mar 2000 |
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| Rosetta's Deep Space Link Down Under |
| The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to Comet Wirtanen is one of the most ambitious scientific missions to be launched during the next decade. A particular challenge posed by Rosetta is the problem of receiving a stream of data from a spacecraft which is flying alongside a small, fast-moving comet almost 900 million km from Earth. |
| Date: 03 Mar 2000 |
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| Rosetta STM is 'all shook up' |
| The test programme of the Rosetta Structural Thermal Model (STM) continues
to go with a bang. At the end of last week, the STM underwent a series of
shocking experiences in order to check its ability to survive the rough
treatment that will be meted out during launch. This was followed today by
a deployment test of a giant solar array. |
| Date: 21 Feb 2000 |
|
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| Romantic rendezvous with Eros previews Rosetta's rock show |
| Last Monday, Valentine's Day, NASA's NEAR satellite achieved a notable
'first' when it entered orbit around a near-Earth asteroid named 433 Eros.
While this romantic rendezvous should provide a host of new information
about the potato-shaped little world, Eros is just one out of many millions
of asteroids roaming the Solar System.
|
| Date: 16 Feb 2000 |
|
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| Rosetta STM passes acceleration trials |
| Environmental tests on the Structural Thermal Model (STM) of the Rosetta
spacecraft are back in full swing after the long break for Christmas and
Millennium celebrations. The latest endurance trial, known as a Sine (or
Sinusoidal) Test, was successfully completed today in the giant check-out
room at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the
Netherlands. |
| Date: 31 Jan 2000 |
|
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| Launch challenge as Rosetta scientists meet for mission update |
| Exactly three years to go before launch! That was the challenge facing
approximately 80 scientists and mission managers from ESA member countries
and the United States as they gathered this week at the European Space
Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in The Netherlands for a progress
report on the Rosetta mission to Comet Wirtanen.
|
| Date: 24 Jan 2000 |
|
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| Blanketed spacecraft ready for balance tests |
| After its safe delivery to the European Space Research and Technology
Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, the Structural Thermal Model (STM) of
the Rosetta spacecraft is ready to start an exhaustive series of
environmental tests.
|
| Date: 15 Dec 1999 |
|
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| Rosetta STM arrives at ESTEC |
| After a five day journey across Europe, the Structural and Thermal Model
(STM) of the Rosetta spacecraft has arrived safely at the European Space
Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in The Netherlands. |
| Date: 06 Dec 1999 |
|
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| Integral and Rosetta on show in Turin |
| In Turin today the Italian satellite builder Alenia Aerospazio presented two ESA spacecraft that will explore the near and far Universe: Integral, the gamma-ray observatory, will gather the most energetic radiation coming from distant objects. Rosetta, the comet chaser, will bring new insights in the formation of our solar system. |
| Date: 24 Nov 1999 |
|
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| Rosetta rises to meet the challenge |
| Thousands of scientists, students, industrialists and representatives of
space agencies flocked to the RAI Congress Centre in Amsterdam this week to attend the 50th International Astronautical Congress. As ever, one of the
main areas of interest for the visitors was an update on global unmanned
space exploration.
|
| Date: 08 Oct 1999 |
|
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| Assembly of Rosetta STM starts in Turin |
| Assembling a spacecraft by taking it to pieces may sound rather illogical,
but that is exactly what has happened to the Rosetta Structural and Thermal
Model (STM). Since its delivery to the Alenia Aerospazio plant in Turin
during August, the STM was separated into two sections - the payload module
(PM), which will carry the scientific experiments, and the service module
(SM) which will house the satellite's main subsystems. Over the next few
months, engineers will be working in two shifts in order to carry out the
assembly, integration and test programmes on each module before they are once again united in late October. |
| Date: 20 Sep 1999 |
|
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| Rosetta Comet Chaser on the move |
| It may not seem much of a journey compared with a multi-million kilometre space trek, but ESA's Rosetta spacecraft today completed its first small step along the road to a rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen in 2011. After a 2000 km hike across Europe, the Structural and Thermal Model (STM) platform structure of the Rosetta orbiter was safely delivered this morning to Alenia Aerospazio's Turin plant. |
| Date: 18 Aug 1999 |
|
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| Rosetta takes shape in Finland |
| Deep in the Finnish countryside, the Structural and Thermal Model (STM) of
the Rosetta orbiter is nearing completion. At the Finavitec factory in the
village of Halli, some 250 km north of Helsinki, engineers are adding
equipment panels to the spacecraft's main structure before shipment to
Italy next month. |
| Date: 21 Jul 1999 |
|
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| Rosetta team plans campaign for comet encounter |
| More than 100 scientists and engineers from all over Europe and the United
States came together at the Royal Society in London 1-2 July to share
progress reports on the Rosetta mission to Comet Wirtanen.
The overall picture presented by the project management team and the
Principal Scientific Investigators (PIs) was that the mission is now well
on the way towards meeting its strict launch deadline of January 2003.
|
| Date: 02 Jul 1999 |
|
|
| ESA's Rosetta comet chaser unveiled in London |
| The final design of the European Space Agency's Rosetta comet chaser was
revealed today at the Royal Society in London when a 1:4 scale (7.1m
diameter) model of the giant spacecraft was unveiled by ESA's Science
Director, Professor Roger Bonnet. |
| Date: 01 Jul 1999 |
|
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| Remarkable new images of Comet Wirtanen |
| In 2011, after an eight-year trek through the inner Solar System, the Rosetta spacecraft will rendezvous with periodic comet Wirtanen before releasing a lander onto its tiny nucleus.
In order to ensure the success of this ambitious mission, a joint team from ESA's Space Science Department and the European Southern Observatory (ESO)
has agreed to make a series of ground-based observations of the comet. The first fruits of this collaboration are a series of remarkable images of the
comet's nucleus which have been released today by ESO to coincide with the
ESA Rosetta press conference in London. |
| Date: 01 Jul 1999 |
|
|
| PR 20-1999: Rosetta - ESA's new comet chaser |
| At a press event to be held on Thursday 1 July at the Royal Society in London
(6 Carlton House Terrace), the European Space Agency's Director of Science, Professor Roger Bonnet, will present the next mission in ESA's ambitious comet exploration programme and unveil a quarter-sized high-fidelity model of the Rosetta orbiter and lander.
|
| Date: 18 Jun 1999 |
|
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| Rosetta Lander put through its paces |
| No spacecraft has yet landed on the surface of a comet. But this will
change in 2012 when the Rosetta lander will set down on the
nucleus of Comet Wirtanen and return a flood of unique data about this
primitive chunk of dirty ice.
In order to ensure the success of such an ambitious project, a full-size
structural-thermal model of the spacecraft has been undergoing an
exhaustive series of tests at the Ottobrunn (Munich) facilities of IABG.
|
| Date: 10 May 1999 |
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