Rosetta—the first man-made spaceship designed to intercept and land on an comet—is alive and well. It just sent its first signal to the world after going into sleep mode 31 months ago. Scientists were anxious, hoping that the computer and the interplanetary probe would alright. All systems: nominal.
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Two and a half years is a long time to sleep—even for a machine. That’s how long Rosetta has slumbered in its decade-long journey towards the comet where it will land. But in the dead of the night, at 2am PST tomorrow morning, Rosetta will awaken. Here’s how its alarm clock works.
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Trying to orbit a comet as it rockets through space is no easy task—but that’s just what the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft is poised to do
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Rosetta
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In November 2014, after traveling 10 years and hundreds of millions of miles, a European spacecraft will touch down on a two-and-a-half-mile-wide ball of ice and dust as it hurtles through space towards the sun. And if all goes according to plan, this unprecedented feat could finally give us what we need to understand the origins of life on Earth. It’s just the "according to plan" that’s the tricky part.
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While NASA’s asteroid-capturing mission remains grounded from a lack of Congressional funding, a similar and equally ambitious ESA program is nearing fruition. In the coming months, the Rosetta spacecraft and its integrated Philae probe will become the first manmade objects to not only orbit an asteroid but land on it as well. Here’s how they’ll do it.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
