News archive

News archive

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.
Published: 28 October 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.
Published: 2 June 2003
New destination for Rosetta, Europe's comet chaser
New destination for Rosetta
Published: 28 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.
Published: 20 March 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.
Published: 20 January 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.
Published: 13 January 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.
Published: 7 January 2003
Announcement of Rosetta launch delay
The launch date for Rosetta, ESA's mission to a comet, has been delayed by a few days.
Published: 5 January 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.
Published: 17 December 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 themnamed 'Rosetta', but all three offer a bridge through time, creating anenduring link across the millennia.
Published: 3 December 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.
Published: 20 November 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.
Published: 28 October 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.
Published: 16 October 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 Grün.
Published: 8 October 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.
Published: 13 September 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.
Published: 5 September 2002
Landing on a cosmic iceberg.
Landings on other worlds are remarkably difficult to achieve. During the last 40 years, the only objects in the Solar System on which robotic spacecraft have soft-landed have been the Moon, Venus, Mars and near-Earth asteroid Eros. A decade from now, it will be the turn of ESA's pioneering Rosetta spacecraft to land on a comet.
Published: 20 August 2002
Rosetta passes compatibility test
Students approaching the conclusion of lengthy academic studies will have considerable sympathy with ESA's Rosetta spacecraft as the end-of-course examinations just keep on coming!
Published: 17 July 2002
Successful deployment tests for Rosetta
The hectic schedule of ground tests on ESA's comet chaser has continued in recent weeks as engineers at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands put the Rosetta spacecraft through its paces.
Published: 3 July 2002
Rosetta wishes CONTOUR luck chasing comets
Comets are suddenly in vogue in space research. ESA is getting ready to send its comet chaser Rosetta in January 2003 to rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen and study it in immense detail. Rosetta aims to physically drop a lander on a comet for the first time. Before that, however, on 1 July 2002, NASA will dispatch its CONTOUR spacecraft to fly past at least two comets, and it has two other small comet missions planned.
Published: 27 June 2002
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