Rosetta Mission

Rosetta spacecraft is on its way!!! First tests during flying mission are finished and results are reassuring.
Rosetta is the third cornerstone mission of the ESA long term scientific programme Horizon 2000 and launched in 2004. 03. 02. with an Ariane 5 Launcher.

The mission is dedicated to the in-situ study of a comet for at least one year, from the onset of activity beyond 3 AU to perihelion. On its way to the comet the spacecraft will fly by one, possibly two, (e.g. Mimistrobell and Shipka) main-belt asteroids. During the comet nucleus orbit phase, one or two Surface Science Packages (SSPs) will be deployed onto the surface of the comet.

Rosetta will be operated as a Principal Investigator type mission with science operations coordinated by the Rosetta Science Operations Centre (RSOC). The two Surface Science Packages will be considered in general as PI investigations. Each SSP with its full payload complement is regarded as one investigation with respect to technical and programmatic interfaces.

The scientific objectives of the mission, the reference model payload which can achieve these objectives and a general mission scenario are described in detail in the mission definition document Rosetta - Comet Rendez-vous Mission, ESA SCI (93)7. However, to provide the enhanced resources to carry a maximum of two SSPs to the comet, the baseline mission had to be changed.

After one year delaing when the original target was lost according to orbit properties of Wirtaanen, the new target is the Churjumov-Gerasimenko comet which is reacable new target.

Our participation in Rosetta mission

The onboard computer of the Rosetta lander, named Philae, was made by our department in KFKI-RMKI. This computer is collecting data and handling housekeeping and telemetry tasks.
The Power Subsystem of the ROSETTA Lander made by BME, the Hungarian University of Technology.
Atomic Energy Research Institute (AEKI) made some experiments, like Simple Plasma Monitor, Dust Impact Monitor and Space Dosimetry experiments.

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 Comments to Pál VIZI  p.vizi@rmki.kfki.hu  

 Contact to Sándor SZALAI szalai@rmki.kfki.hu