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William Atkins
Sunday, 25 February 2007 04:00
Early Sunday morning, the Rosetta spacecraft will pass within 250 kilometers (155 miles) of the planet Mars during its gravity assisted maneuver (or swing-by) to change course. Two years ago, the probe performed the same type of maneuver around the Earth and will do two more in late 2007 and 2009.
During its 24-minute passage on the far side of Mars, the craft will lose power for 15 minutes to its instruments because all are powered by the Sun through solar arrays. However, enough energy has been stored in batteries to hopefully maintain the instruments during its power outage. All instruments will be powered down during this time, except for its camera that will be taking images of the planet below.
According to calculations performed on Saturday February 24, 2007, the spacecraft is precisely positioned to make a successful passage of Mars. Rosetta operations manager Andrea Accomazzo said of the craft’s delicate position with respect to Mars, “You have to be very precise with the navigation. We did a last orbital determination this morning and we are perfectly on target.” (This according to Associated Press information on International Herald Tribune.)
The ESA-led unmanned Rosetta spacecraft launched to study two asteroids and one comet did its first Mars fly-by on February 25, 2007. The spacecraft will also do fly-bys of asteroid 2867 Šteins and asteroid 21 Luetia, and its lander Philae will land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Rosetta was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on March 2, 2004, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. In all, it will perform three Earth and one Mars gravity-assisted maneuvers to get itself to its final destination of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
For additional information about the Rosetta mission, go to the January 29, 2007 ITwire article “Rosetta space probe just a stone’s throw away from Mars” at: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/9004/1066/.
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