Posted on 01/18/2014 4:18:15 PM PST by BenLurkin
Monday, January 20, at 10:00 GMT (which is 5:00 a.m. for U.S. East Coasters like me) the wake-up call will ring on ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, bringing it out of hibernation after over two and a half years in preparation of its upcoming and highly-anticipated rendezvous with a comet.
The wake-up will incite the warming of Rosetta’s star trackers, which allow it to determine its orientation in space. Six hours later its thrusters will fire to stop its slow rotation and ensure that its solar arrays are receiving the right amount of sunlight.
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After nearly a decade of soaring through the inner solar system, flying past Mars and Earth several times and even briefly visiting a couple of asteroids (2867 Steins on September 5, 2008 and 21 Lutetia on July 10, 2010) Rosetta is finally entering the home stretch of its mission to orbit the 4-km-wide comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
This is a cool mission. We also start getting our first pictures of Pluto from New Horizons in less than a year.
Dawn is headed for Ceres and Juno is headed for Jupiter.
We enjoyed the video featuring the Lego Mindstorms Philae landing craft.
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