Categories: AsteroidsMissions

Rosetta Prepares for Meet-Up With Asteroid Next Week

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ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft will make an historic encounter with asteroid (2867) Steins on September 5, 2008 at 20:58 CEST (Central European Summer Time), 2:58 pm EDT (US Eastern Daylight Time.) A few days ago, Rosetta conducted a successful trajectory correction maneuver using images from the spacecraft’s cameras to calculate the asteroid’s location, to optimize its trajectory for the fly-by. Rosetta will rendezvous with the asteroid while one its way to its primary mission, to visit comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. At its closest approach to the asteroid, the spacecraft will be just 800 km from Steins.

At closest approach, however, the spacecraft will not be in communication with Earth. First ground contact with the spacecraft to verify a successful flyby will occur about an hour and half after the encounter. The first images and results will be available for presentation to the media during a press conference on Saturday, September 6 at 12:00 CEST.

Artist's impression of Rosetta and Asteroid Steins. Credit: ESA

Click here for an animation of Rosetta’s flyby.

Steins is Rosetta’s first nominal scientific target. The study of asteroids is extremely important as they represent a sample of Solar System material at different stages of evolution – key to understanding the origin of our own planet and of our planetary neighborhood. Rosetta will also encounter (21) Lutetia on June 10, 2010.

We’ll post the images and information from the flyby here on Universe Today as soon as they are available.

Source: ESA

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

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