NASA Preps for Space Station Power Upgrade Spacewalks; Live NASA TV Coverage

Expedition 50 astronauts will venture outside the International Space Station at 7 a.m. EST Jan. 6 and 13 to perform a complex upgrade to the orbital outpost’s power system. Coverage of the spacewalks will begin at 5:30 a.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA Administrator Remembers NASA Scientist, Astronaut Piers Sellers

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Piers Sellers, who passed away Friday in Houston of pancreatic cancer:

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Once Upon a Time: The amazing adventures of Rosetta and Philae

Watch the amazing cartoon adventures of Rosetta and Philae, now back-to-back in one special feature-length production.

Find out how Rosetta and Philae first got inspired to visit a comet, and follow them on their incredible ten-year journey through the Solar System to their destination, flying around planets and past asteroids along the way. Watch as Philae tries to land on the comet and deals with some unexpected challenges! Learn about the fascinating observations that Rosetta made as she watched the comet change before her eyes as they got closer to the Sun and then further away again. Finally, wish Rosetta farewell, as she, too, finishes her amazing adventure on the surface of the comet. Keep watching for one last surprise!

French version:

Italian version:

Spanish version:

German version coming soon!

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Rosetta’s complete journey – animation

Now in one complete animation: Rosetta’s trajectory around Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, from arrival to mission end.

The animation begins on 31 July 2014, during Rosetta’s final approach to the comet after its ten-year journey through space. The spacecraft arrived at a distance of 100 km on 6 August, from where it gradually approached the comet and entered initial mapping orbits that were needed to select a landing site for Philae. These observations also enabled the first comet science of the mission.

The manoeuvres in the lead up to, during and after Philae’s release on 12 November are seen, before Rosetta settled into longer-term science orbits.

In February and March 2015 the spacecraft made several flybys. One of the closest triggered a ‘safe mode’ that forced it to retreat temporarily until it was safe to draw gradually closer again.

The comet’s increased activity in the lead up to and after perihelion in August 2015 meant that Rosetta remained well beyond 100 km for several months.

In June 2015, contact was restored with Philae again – albeit temporary, with no permanent link able to be maintained, despite a series of dedicated trajectories flown by Rosetta for several weeks.

Following the closest approach to the Sun, Rosetta made a dayside far excursion some 1500 km from the comet, before re-approaching to closer orbits again, enabled by the reduction in the comet’s activity.

In March–April 2016 Rosetta went on another far excursion, this time on the night side, followed by a close flyby and orbits dedicated to a range of science observations.

In early August the spacecraft started flying elliptical orbits that brought it progressively closer to the comet. On 24 September Rosetta left its close, flyover orbits and switched into the start of a 16 x 23 km orbit that was used to prepare and line up for the final descent.

On the evening of 29 September Rosetta manoeuvred onto a collision course with the comet, beginning the final, slow descent from an altitude of 19 km. It collected scientific data throughout the descent and gently struck the surface at 10:39 GMT on 30 September in the Ma’at region on the comet’s ‘head’, concluding the mission.

The trajectory shown in this animation is created from real data, but the comet rotation is not. Distances are given with respect to the comet centre (except for the zero at the end to indicate completion), but may not necessarily follow the exact comet distance because of natural deviations from the comet’s gravity and outgassing. An arrow indicates the direction to the Sun as the camera viewpoint changes during the animation.

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Impressions of Rosetta’s legacy

In September–October 2016, over 200 people contributed to the Rosetta Legacy campaign, sharing stories, images, videos, creations and experiences to convey what the mission had meant to them.

We decided to collect all contributions in an e-book, to keep a long-lasting record of the mission’s impact on a variety of public audiences. This publication presents a collection of these outstanding contributions and provides a taste of Rosetta’s legacy for fellow science communicators, scientists and engineers, educators, space enthusiasts – anyone who was fascinated by the mission.

The e-book (pdf, 33MB) is available here.

Thanks again to everyone who shared with us what the mission meant to them, and to all followers of Rosetta and Philae worldwide.

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OSIRIS Data Release: March–May 2015

A new batch of thousands of images from Rosetta's OSIRIS imaging system have been released into ESA's Archive Image Browser and the Planetary Science Archive.

This latest OSIRIS data release comprises 2423 narrow-angle camera images and 4378 wide-angle camera images from the period 11 March – 24 May 2015. You can browse through the new images in the MTP 014, 015 and 016 albums here.

Example of images from the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera albums in the latest data release. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

 

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Space Laser Reveals Boom-and-Bust Cycle of Polar Ocean Plants

A new study using a NASA satellite instrument orbiting Earth has found that small, environmental changes in polar food webs significantly influence the boom-and-bust, or peak and decline, cycles of phytoplankton.

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Voyager Mission Celebrates 30 Years Since Uranus

Humanity has visited Uranus only once, and that was 30 years ago. NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft got its closest look at the mysterious, distant, gaseous planet on Jan. 24, 1986.

Voyager 2 sent back stunning images of the planet and its moons during the flyby, which allowed for about 5.5 hours of close study. The spacecraft got within 50,600 miles (81,500 kilometers) of Uranus during that time.

"We knew Uranus would be different because it's tipped on its side, and we expected surprises," said Ed Stone, project scientist for the Voyager mission, based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Stone has served as project scientist since 1972, continuing in that role today.

Uranus revealed itself to be the coldest planet known in our solar system, even though it's not the farthest from the sun. This is because it has no internal heat source.

Scientists determined that the atmosphere of Uranus is 85 percent hydrogen and 15 percent helium. There was also evidence of a boiling ocean about 500 miles (800 kilometers) below the cloud tops.

Scientists found that Uranus has a magnetic field different from any they had ever encountered previously. At Mercury, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, the magnetic field is aligned approximately with the rotational axis.

"Then we got to Uranus and saw that the poles were closer to the equator," Stone said. "Neptune turned out to be similar. The magnetic field was not quite centered with the center of the planet."

This surface magnetic field of Uranus was also stronger than that of Saturn. Data from Voyager 2 helped scientists determine that the magnetic tail of Uranus twists into a helix stretching 6 million miles (10 million kilometers) in the direction pointed away from the sun. Understanding how planetary magnetic fields interact with the sun is a key part of NASA's goal to understand the very nature of space. Not only does studying the sun-planet connection provide information useful for space travel, but it helps shed light on the origins of planets and their potential for harboring life.

Voyager 2 also discovered 10 new moons (there are 27 total) and two new rings at the planet, which also proved fascinating. An icy moon called Miranda revealed a peculiar, varied landscape and evidence of active geologic activity in the past. While only about 300 miles (500 kilometers) in diameter, this small object boasts giant canyons that could be up to 12 times as deep as the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Miranda also has three unique features called "coronae," which are lightly cratered collections of ridges and valleys. Scientists think this moon could have been shattered and then reassembled.

Mission planners designed Voyager 2's Uranus encounter so that the spacecraft would receive a gravity assist to help it reach Neptune. In 1989, Voyager 2 added Neptune to its resume of first-ever looks.

"The Uranus encounter was very exciting for me," said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, who began her career with the mission while Voyager 2 was en route to Uranus." It was my first planetary encounter and it was of a planet humanity had never seen up close before. Every new image showed more details of Uranus, and it had lots of surprises for the scientists. I hope another spacecraft will be sent to explore Uranus, to explore the planet in more detail, in my lifetime."

Voyager 2 was launched on Aug. 20, 1977, 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made history as the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space, crossing the boundary encompassing our solar system's planets, sun and solar wind. Voyager 2 is also expected to reach interstellar space within the next several years.

The Voyagers were built by JPL, which continues to operate both spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:

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Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-6425

elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov

2016-019

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NASA Television to Air Programs Celebrating Space Pioneer John Glenn

NASA Television will air two programs live from Ohio celebrating the life of U.S. Marine, NASA astronaut and Ohio senator John Glenn today and Saturday, Dec. 17.

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New NASA Hurricane Tracking Mission on Track

NASA confirmed Friday morning that all eight spacecraft of its latest Earth science mission are in good shape. The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) will provide scientists with advanced technology to see inside tropical storms and hurricanes like never before.

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NASA Reveals the Unknown in 2016

In 2016, NASA drove advances in technology, science, aeronautics and space exploration that enhanced the world’s knowledge, innovation, and stewardship of Earth.

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Rosetta’s last words: science descending to a comet

On 30 September 2016, at 11:19:37 UT in ESA’s mission control, Rosetta’s signal flat-lined, confirming that the spacecraft had completed its incredible mission on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko some 40 minutes earlier and 720 million km from Earth. Rosetta was working up to the very end, collecting reams of science data as it descended towards a region of pits in the Ma’at region on the comet’s ‘head’.

Before we ‘retire’ the blog, we wanted to catch up with the instrument teams following this grand finale to find out how their instruments performed and if there were any surprises in Rosetta’s last ‘words’ from the comet.

Rosetta touched down just 33 m away from the target point, as indicated by the green descent trajectory line. The inner circle has a radius of 50 m and the concentric circles around the centre are spaced by increments of 50 m. Credit: ESA

First a reminder of the impact site: Rosetta was targeting a point within a 700 x 500 m ellipse, between two pits in the Ma’at region. Reconstruction of the final descent trajectory showed that the spacecraft touched down at 10:39:34 UT at the comet, only 33 metres away from the target point and just inside a shallow, ancient pit. This accuracy once again highlights the excellent work done by the flight dynamics specialists who supported the entire mission.

The touchdown site was subsequently named Sais after a town in Egypt where the Rosetta Stone, for which the mission was named, is thought to have been originally located.

Right before impact, one of Rosetta’s star trackers generated an event reporting a ‘Large Object’ in the field of view: this was the local comet ‘horizon’. Upon touchdown, the signal coming from Rosetta was lost, and mission operators believe that this was most likely caused by the high gain antenna immediately off-pointing from Earth at impact. No further telemetry was received subsequently, indicating that the planned safe mode and subsequent shut down of the spacecraft likely occurred successfully.

Rosetta’s last image was taken with the OSIRIS wide-angle camera about 20 m above the surface. Prior to that, much of the imaging campaign during the descent focused on the 130 metre-wide pit named Deir el-Medina, as shown by the blue ‘footprints’ in the plot below. As seen on 30 September, the camera succeeded in capturing detailed images of the inside of the pit and its walls. These images will be used to help understand the comet’s subsurface and thus its geological history. The trail of orange and red squares then reflects the change in pointing of the spacecraft’s camera towards the impact site at Sais.

Imaging ‘footprints’ of the OSIRIS camera. The primary focus in the final descent phase was Deir el-Medina pit as shown by the blue squares, with the last images taken above the eventual impact site at Sais, as indicated by the red squares. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

 

ROSINA’s Comet Pressure Sensor (COPS) measured the pressure of gas in the vicinity of the spacecraft during its final hours. The surface is at a distance of roughly 2 km from the centre of the comet. The small breaks in the black line are due to internal adjustments of the COPS instrument being made during the descent to cope with the rising pressure. Image courtesy K. Altwegg.

Pressure rising

Several other Rosetta science instruments were in operation during the descent, including ROSINA’s Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer (DFMS) and Comet Pressure Sensor (COPS). Both recorded data “down to the ground”, as ROSINA Principal Investigator Kathrin Altwegg puts it. As reported on the day itself, and shown now in the plot below, ROSINA measured an increase in the surrounding gas pressure by more than a factor of 100 as the spacecraft neared the surface.

“We saw the gas velocity and ram pressure drop to zero before we reached the ground, suggesting there is an interesting acceleration of gas slightly away from the nucleus,” says Kathrin. “We also collected good data with the DFMS, and will be looking at which kind of atoms and molecules were present in the gas.”

Temperature measurements below the surface

Mark Hofstadter, Principal Investigator for the MIRO instrument, reported that good data were collected throughout the descent, with the last measurement made at 10:39:07 UT at the comet on 30 September 2016. The MIRO team think the spacecraft was about 20 m above the surface at this point.

“For the last two minutes of data, our sub-millimetre beam footprint on the surface was less than 20 cm in diameter,” says Mark.

Comet 67P/C-G viewed with Rosetta's OSIRIS NAC on 30 September 2016, 1.2 km from the surface. In the lower right corner is the bottom of the pit, while the dark band crossing the image diagonally from right to left is the shadow of the pit wall; the terrain above the pit is visible in the upper left corner. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

During the descent, MIRO collected continuum emission data from the nucleus, providing temperature measurements ~1 and 5 cm below the surface.  

“Over the last few hours, we see temperatures varying between about 80 and 160 K as our beam moved across the nucleus. We think these differences are due to topography and shadowing – but we still need to correlate the details with topographic models and OSIRIS images to confirm that.”

“We also noticed that the temperature of our telescope rose over the last couple hours of the mission. We haven’t figured out yet if that is due to the angle of the Sun changing, or if we were being heated by the nucleus as it filled more and more of the sky.”

Mark also told us that MIRO’s last spectroscopic measurement of water in the coma was made in a limb-observing mode on 27 September at 13:26 UT. This resulted in a very rough estimate of the global average water production rate at that time of about 10^24 molecules per second or the equivalent of two tablespoons (this preliminary estimate may be refined following further analysis). During its most active period in August 2015, estimates were in the region of two bathtubs’ worth of water every second.

Comet chameleon

The Alice instrument also made observations at ultraviolet wavelengths all the way to the surface. The final spectrum transmitted was an exposure that started at 10:20:16 and ended at 10:30:21 UT at the comet, about nine minutes before impact. The Alice team estimates that the final data were collected over a range of about 1000 to 500 metres altitude above the surface, with each row on the Alice instrument covering an average spatial scale of about four metres.

Final spectra from Alice, showing the reflectance of the surface at close range with ~3m resolution. Image courtesy A. Stern/J. Parker.

At the time of impact, Alice was 8.5 minutes into a 10-minute exposure. The last communication from Alice was a housekeeping packet received at 10:39:00 UT, about half a minute before impact. The housekeeping data included the count rate of the total ultraviolet flux over the Alice bandpass, which was being reported every 30 seconds, and which showed a steady increase in the UV flux during the descent.

Looking at the last hour of data from Alice as an overall averaged spectrum, the trend of the slope and lack of broad absorption features is very similar to previously published results. That is, Alice did not see significant differences in the surface composition at these high spatial resolutions when compared to observations over larger areas. There was also no obvious indication of small icy patches.

“Of course, these are very quick-look results that may change as we look more carefully at the data,” notes Joel Parker, Alice’s deputy Principal Investigator.

Data gathered from both Alice housekeeping and science telemetry indicated that the strength of a feature in the spectra nicknamed the ‘chameleon’ (the curved lines on the left side of the spectral image above) also increased throughout the descent.  

“This feature has appeared throughout the mission with lots of variability, and we believe it is a result of dust and sometimes ions entering the instrument,” says Alan Stern, Alice’s Principal Investigator. “The morphology of the chameleon during this time period matches the morphologies seen during dusty time periods, indicating that there may have been an increase in nano-grain dust density as the altitude decreased.”

The last off-nucleus observation that Alice obtained of the comet’s coma was on 29 September, and was typical of limb spectra observed since the beginning of May 2016, when the comet was about 3 AU from the Sun. It showed that carbon dioxide outgassing was still on-going at the end of the mission, at greater distances from the Sun than seen when the comet was still approaching the Sun earlier in the mission.

“Overall, Alice worked exactly as planned throughout the end of mission and the descent, and provided an excellent dataset that will need much more detailed analysis,” adds Joel.

Steady solar wind and cometary plasma peak

The Rosetta Plasma Consortium sensors also enjoyed a good ride to the comet surface, with steady solar wind measurements.

“These data are actually very useful, providing us with a ‘quiet’ time reference profile covering a large altitude interval for a steady solar wind, which will help us calibrate the datasets that were took throughout the whole comet phase,” comments Hans Nilsson, Principal Investigator for the RPC-ICA sensor.

Artist impression of Rosetta arriving on the surface of the comet. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

RPC-LAP and RPC-MIP both reported very low plasma densities through the descent, though slowly and evenly increasing, similar to that seen by ROSINA-COPS for neutral gas. However, the plasma reached a broad peak of up to about 100–150 cm^-3 (preliminary measurement) at about 2 km from surface, before dropping off again. This is as expected for a plasma originating from the neutral gas released by the comet: its density must be low at the surface since the molecules found there have just left the nucleus and have not had any time to become ionised.

“There is some plasma structure to be seen, but not much: this counts among the weakest ionospheres we have seen at the comet, but as may be expected in the northern hemisphere, which was winter at the time,” adds Anders Eriksson, Principal Investigator of the RPC-LAP sensor. “If there was any local outgassing from the Ma’at pits, it is at least not immediately striking in our data.”

RPC-IES demonstrated that the ions in the coma showed a modest increase in energy while the total flux of electrons decreased very near the comet, as expected and in line with the reduced coma density observations. The increase in observed coma ion energy could have been caused by an increase in negative spacecraft potential as the density decreased – something that is being looked into.

Finally, RPC-MAG made measurements down to a distance of about 11 m above the surface, showing no increase in the magnetic field with proximity. This confirms the finding, made during Philae’s landing in November 2014, that the comet is non-magnetic.

A dust free descent?

Of Rosetta’s three dust instruments, only GIADA was on during the descent, with MIDAS and COSIMA completing their missions in the days before. As it turns out, GIADA did not detect any dust, but this non-detection is itself an interesting observation.

“During the final descent, the environment was like a clean room!” remarked GIADA Principal Investigator, Alessandra Rotundi.

ROSINA, MIRO, and Alice team members confirmed the GIADA view. For example, the water production rate observed by MIRO over the region where Rosetta impacted was likely far too low to lift dust particles detectable by GIADA off the surface. Any dust grains present must have been very small indeed to evade detection, below GIADA’s limit of 50 micrometres diameter.

The very last COSIMA particle – named Yaman Evijarvi – was collected on 27 September 2016 between 01:51:55 and 14:08:11 UT on target 2C3, about 20 km away from the comet. Image courtesy M. Hilchenbach.

One last dust particle…

Even though COSIMA was off during the final descent, the instrument’s Principal Investigator, Martin Hilchenbach, told us that one last dust particle was collected during their final day of operations, on 27 September. At that time, Rosetta was about 20 km from the comet centre. 

The particle has the name ‘Yaman Evijarvi’. Earlier in the mission, COSIMA particles were named for COSIMA team members, but with thousands of particles collected, this list was soon exhausted. Instead, ‘Yaman’ was the next name on a random list of international names (this one from Turkey), and ‘Evijarvi’, the name of a Finnish lake, comes from the theme used by the team to identify times period of dust collection.

The last secondary ion mass analysis, around dust particle ‘Lou’ on target C3, zoomed to a mass range including aluminium and organic molecules. Image courtesy M. Hilchenbach.

Martin commented that the last days of Rosetta were as busy as ever for their team, as the COSIMA primary ion source parameters had to be adjusted in the very last minutes to acquire the last secondary ion spectra. “I was really impressed that after 26 months of operations, the motivation was just as high as on the first day,” he said. “In the end, our primary ion beam source outlived the total predicted hours of operation by a factor of two.”

Martin adds “And as planned, we returned all of the dust particles we collected back to the surface of the comet on 30 September – cosmic recycling, over 700 million km from Earth!”

“It’s great to have these first insights from Rosetta’s last set of data,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist. “Operations have been completed for over two months now, and the instrument teams are very much focused on analysing their huge datasets collected during Rosetta’s two-plus years at the comet.

“Data from this period will eventually be made available in our archives in the same way as all Rosetta data.”

 

And finally… from the blog editors to the Rosetta teams all around the world: thank you for sharing your stories and discoveries with us, to make this blog such a rich source of information for everyone to enjoy. We’re looking forward to the discoveries to come and continuing our science coverage on esa.int and sci.esa.int.

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NASA, 4-H Launch Expeditionary Skills For Life

Being an astronaut takes teamwork, resiliency, a strong awareness of self and others, and perseverance – skills that also are necessary to succeed in life. So, NASA and 4-H are teaming up to help students develop these life skills.

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NASA, 4-H Launch Expeditionary Skils For Life

Being an astronaut takes teamwork, resiliency, a strong awareness of self and others, and perseverance – skills that also are necessary to succeed in life. So, NASA and 4-H are teaming up to help students develop these life skills.

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Nantucket Students to Speak to Space Station Commander

Massachusetts students will speak with a NASA astronaut on the International Space Station on Thursday, Dec. 15.

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NASA Targets Wednesday for Launch of Small Satellite Constellation

NASA is rescheduling the launch of its Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) spacecraft for no earlier than Wednesday, Dec. 14, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, during a one-hour window that opens at 8:20 a.m. EST.

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Reflections

Artist's impression of Rosetta's descent on the comet on 30 September 2016. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Some ten weeks have passed since Rosetta ended its mission on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and it is time for a little reflection here on the Rosetta blog...

Over the past three years, we have written over 670 posts covering mission operations, science highlights, special events, images of the comet, and so much more. The blog has become a reference for a wide audience, ranging from science journalists to space enthusiasts, from casual readers to educators and even Rosetta mission scientists and operators.

Beyond that, it has become a place for people to share their ideas and concerns. When we re-launched the blog in 2013, we did not expect the huge number of comments that came in – almost 18,600 to date – and certainly we didn’t envision the considerable amount of time needed to moderate them! But we learned a lot from the comments, some of which became lengthy discussions, and which on occasion triggered new blog posts or direct engagement between readers and mission experts.

However, with the flight phase of the mission now over there are obviously no longer any news updates to share about current operations, and so we have decided to close the blog. We will soon publish our last post and close the comments section for good, although naturally, all of the material will remain online for the foreseeable future.

And of course, we will keep writing about new scientific results based on data from the mission as they’re published, and news such as updates on the availability of data in the public archives. These will be reported via our websites (Space Science Portal and Science & Technology) and on social media, especially via our @esascience Twitter account.

It's been an amazing and intense three years for us, and we hope that you also enjoyed the ride. It has been our pleasure to have you join in. As a final farewell, we would like to invite all blog readers to tell us a little about yourselves – after all, many of the contributors to the comment section are long since familiar to us by their names and nicknames, but in many cases, we don’t know a lot more.

So, make a comment to this post and feel free to tell us when, how, and why you became interested in Rosetta/comets/space science in general, how you found out about the blog, whether you followed it regularly, and what you enjoyed (or disliked!) most about it.

As ever, there are rules, however:: only one comment allowed per contributor and, as usual, off-topic posts will not be published

In your comment to this post, feel free to tell us when, how and why you became interested in Rosetta/comets/space science in general, how you found out about the blog, whether you followed it regularly and what you enjoyed most about it.

The comment function of the blog will be deactivated before the holiday break, so please post your comments before then.

We are looking forward to reading your contributions!

Best wishes,

– The Rosetta blog team

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NASA Invites Media to Hidden Figures Book Discussion in Washington

NASA will host a panel discussion and reading from the book Hidden Figures, now a major motion picture, with about 350 students of Washington schools at 10 a.m. EST Wednesday, Dec. 14, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington. The event will air live on NASA Television and stream on the agency’s website.

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NASA Remembers American Legend John Glenn

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the passing of Sen. John Glenn:

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NASA Highlights Ceres, Earth’s Flowing Ice, Mars at American Geophysical Union

NASA researchers will present new findings on a wide range of Earth and space science topics at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Dec. 12-16 in San Francisco. NASA-related briefings will be carried live on the agency’s website.

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NASA Shares the Universe on Pinterest and GIPHY

NASA now is sharing its best images on official Pinterest and GIPHY accounts, providing visitors an out-of-this-world journey through animated GIFs and images of Earth and beyond.

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NASA Awards Launch Services Program Support Contract

NASA has awarded a contract to a.i. solutions, Inc., of Lanham, Maryland, to support the agency’s Launch Services Program (LSP) in providing end-to-end launch services for NASA and NASA-sponsored payloads on commercial expendable launch vehicles.

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NASA Announces First Geostationary Vegetation, Atmospheric Carbon Mission

NASA has selected a first-of-its-kind Earth science mission that will extend our nation’s lead in measuring key greenhouse gases and vegetation health from space to advance our understanding of Earth’s natural exchanges of carbon between the land, atmosphere and ocean.

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NASA Awards Contract for Refueling Mission Spacecraft

NASA has awarded the Restore-L Spacecraft Bus and Support Services contract to Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, California. Restore-L is a robotic spacecraft equipped with the tools, technologies and techniques needed to service satellites currently in orbit.

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NASA TV Coverage Set for Japanese Cargo Ship Destined for Space Station

The launch of a Japanese cargo ship to the International Space Station, and its arrival at the orbiting laboratory, will be broadcast Dec. 9 and 13 on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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Spinoff 2017 Shows How NASA Technology Makes a Difference on Earth

NASA has released its Spinoff 2017 publication, which takes a close look at 50 different companies that are using NASA technology – innovations developed by NASA, with NASA funding, or under a contract with the agency – in products that we all benefit from.

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NASA Administrator Statement on ESA’s Commitment to Space Station

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) decision to continue its operations aboard the International Space Station:

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NASA Sets Coverage for Briefings, Launch of Small Satellite Constellation

The launch of NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) spacecraft is scheduled for 8:24 a.m. EST Monday, Dec. 12. News briefings, live launch commentary, photo opportunities and other media events will be held at nearby NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and carried live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

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NASA Announces Early Stage Innovation Space Technology Research Grants

NASA has selected 13 university-led proposals for the study of innovative, early stage technologies that address high priority needs of America's space program.

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Russian Resupply Ship Experiences Anomaly; International Space Station Crew is Fine

The Russian space agency Roscosmos has confirmed a Progress cargo resupply spacecraft bound for the International Space Station has been lost. The spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Thursday on a Soyuz rocket, but experienced an anomaly around six and a half minutes into its flight.

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NASA Invites Media to Talk with Cast of Hidden Figures at Kennedy Space Center

Media are invited to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to participate in a news conference at 3 p.m. EST Monday, Dec. 12, with cast members from the 20th Century Fox motion picture Hidden Figures.

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