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Space


Rosetta

After many years of planning and conceptual design, initially in conjunction with NASA, the Rosetta Primordial Bodies mission was selected by ESA in November, 1993, as the third cornerstone of the Horizon 2000 space science program. The revised 1994 mission profile called for a launch in January, 2003 for a rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen in late 2011, remaining with the natural body through perihelion passage in 2013. The objective of the mission is to "undertake remote sensing of the nucleus and the near-coma and carry out in situ measurements of the surface using a small deployed instrument package" (Reference 104).(The original ESA-NASA plan envisioned a more challenging comet nucleus sample return.) Later, the surface instruments were separated into two surface science packages (SSPs). The candidate spacecraft bus is a variant of Matra Marconi's Eurostar GEO communications satellite. The spacecraft and payload are still in the definition and early design phase (References 104-111).



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