Mission control at closest approach

Rosetta is preparing to make a close encounter with its comet tomorrow, on 14 February, passing just 6 km from the surface. On 4 February, Rosetta began manoeuvring onto a series of new trajectories that will align the spacecraft for this week’s encounter. The series of thruster burns are happening (or have happened) as follows (distances are indicated from comet surface): 4 Feb – Depart from 26-km terminator orbit 7 Feb – Achieve 142 km from comet, then turn back 11 Feb – Arc back down to 101 km 14 Feb – Reach 50 km stand-off distance; turn and burn for the closest flyby arc 14 Feb – Conduct 6 km flyby at 12:40:50c GMT The closest pass occurs over the comet’s larger lobe, above the Imhotep region (click on the image below to watch). Note that, in the main science phase, Rosetta’s trajectory is being set by the Rosetta Science Operations Centre (RSOC) at ESAC, on a 16-week planning calendar (known as the LTP – the ‘long term planning’ process), and is fully optimised for the suite of instruments on board. This means that 16 weeks before the start of each LTP cycle, RSOC proposes a trajectory for that LTP. This trajectory is then checked, against spacecraft and mission constraints, among other factors, at ESOC by the flight dynamics team. While closest approach on 14 February is certainly a significant event for science observations, for the flight control team at ESOC, it’s a fairly routine operation and just one more activity during the main science phase. Very short week in, very short week out Since the intense manoeuvring and operations of 2014, the flight control team have adopted a regular weekly planning cycle. This covers two ‘VSTPs’ (very short term plans) covering Wednesdays to Saturdays (planned on Mondays) and […]



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