News Release

Follow Rosetta's final Earth boost

Peer-Reviewed Publication

European Space Agency

ESA Rosetta Flight Control Team in Action.

image: ESA Rosetta Flight Control Team in action during the encounter with asteroid Steins in 2008. view more 

Credit: ESA/ D.Scuka

ESA's comet chaser Rosetta will swing by Earth for the last time on 13 November to pick up energy and begin the final leg of its 10-year journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA's European Space Operations Centre will host a media briefing on that day.

This will be the third Earth swingby, the last of Rosetta's four planetary gravity assists. Closest approach to Earth is expected at 08:45 CET (07:45 UT). The swingby will provide exactly the boost Rosetta needs to continue into the outer Solar System. The spacecraft is scheduled for a close encounter with asteroid 21 Lutetia in July next year, before it goes into hibernation early in 2011, only to wake up in early 2014 for approach to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

As the most primitive objects in the Solar System, the chemical composition of comets has not changed much since their formation. They preserve a record of the early Solar System.

When it reaches 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, Rosetta will be the first mission to orbit and deploy a lander on a comet. It will help to reconstruct the history of our neighbourhood in space.

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The spacecraft is operated from ESOC, ESA's European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany.

RSVP requested

Media interested in following Rosetta's last Earth swingby may participate in a press briefing organised at ESOC on 13 November. Time: 8:15 – 9:15 CET Location: ESA ESOC, Robert Bosch Strasse 5, Darmstadt, Germany

RSVP via telephone or email (contact details below) before 11 November 2009.

Those unable to attend can follow near-realtime updates on:

The Rosetta blog
(www.esa.int/blog)

The ESA Rosetta website
(www.esa.int/rosetta)

The ESA Spacecraft Operations website
(www.esa.int/ops)

A timeline of critical events is available on the Rosetta website.


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