Pégase
03-02-2004, 02:17 AM
it is here and now :
http://www.arianespace.com/site/index2.html
"Rosetta is one of the most ambitious projects ever conceived in space exploration.
Its five-billion-kilometer (three-billion-mile) trek will require four planetary flybys of Earth and Mars to build up sufficient speed to meet a comet 675 million kilometers (420 million miles) from the Sun, 10 years from now.
Laden with remote sensors to map the comet's surface, Rosetta will then follow the comet as it orbits around the Sun and then drop a small miniature laboratory onto its surface to carry out chemical and geological analysis.
Driving this remarkable initiative is the belief that comets may contain vital clues as to how the Solar System was formed and even about how life itself began on Earth.
Famously described as "dirty snowballs", comets are believed to be orbiting clusters of frozen gas and dust -- the primitive material from which the planets accumulated, more than four and a half billion years ago.
According to the so-called panspermia theory, comets are replete in complex, volatile molecules.
By bombarding Earth in its infancy, comets may have seeded the planet with the chemical building blocks for water and DNA, the stuff of life as we know it.
Rosetta was originally due to have been launched more than a year ago, but that operation was cancelled because of reliability fears about the Ariane 5.
Its target, Comet Wirtanen, was substituted by Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. "
Rosetta is build by EADS -Astrium
for the complete info on the kit used :
http://www.arianespace.com/site/news/news_sub_launchkit_index.html
http://www.arianespace.com/site/index2.html
"Rosetta is one of the most ambitious projects ever conceived in space exploration.
Its five-billion-kilometer (three-billion-mile) trek will require four planetary flybys of Earth and Mars to build up sufficient speed to meet a comet 675 million kilometers (420 million miles) from the Sun, 10 years from now.
Laden with remote sensors to map the comet's surface, Rosetta will then follow the comet as it orbits around the Sun and then drop a small miniature laboratory onto its surface to carry out chemical and geological analysis.
Driving this remarkable initiative is the belief that comets may contain vital clues as to how the Solar System was formed and even about how life itself began on Earth.
Famously described as "dirty snowballs", comets are believed to be orbiting clusters of frozen gas and dust -- the primitive material from which the planets accumulated, more than four and a half billion years ago.
According to the so-called panspermia theory, comets are replete in complex, volatile molecules.
By bombarding Earth in its infancy, comets may have seeded the planet with the chemical building blocks for water and DNA, the stuff of life as we know it.
Rosetta was originally due to have been launched more than a year ago, but that operation was cancelled because of reliability fears about the Ariane 5.
Its target, Comet Wirtanen, was substituted by Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. "
Rosetta is build by EADS -Astrium
for the complete info on the kit used :
http://www.arianespace.com/site/news/news_sub_launchkit_index.html