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Deep Space 1 (DS1) was a NASA technology demonstration spacecraft which flew by an asteroid and a comet. It was part of the New Millennium Program, dedicated to testing advanced technologies.
Rosetta was a space probe built by the European Space Agency launched on 2 March 2004. Along with Philae, its lander module, Rosetta performed a detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P). During its journey to the comet, the spacecraft performed flybys of Earth, Mars, and the asteroids 21 Lutetia and 2867 Šteins. It was launched as the third cornerstone mission of the ESA's Horizon 2000 programme, after SOHO / Cluster and XMM-Newton.
Stardust was a 390-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on 7 February 1999. Its primary mission was to collect dust samples from the coma of comet Wild 2, as well as samples of cosmic dust, and return these to Earth for analysis. It was the first sample return mission of its kind. En route to comet Wild 2, the craft also flew by and studied the asteroid 5535 Annefrank. The primary mission was successfully completed on 15 January 2006, when the sample return capsule returned to Earth.
New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.
46P/Wirtanen is a small short-period comet with a current orbital period of 5.4 years. It was the original target for close investigation by the Rosetta spacecraft, planned by the European Space Agency, but an inability to meet the launch window caused Rosetta to be sent to 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko instead. It belongs to the Jupiter family of comets, all of which have aphelia between 5 and 6 AU. Its diameter is estimated at 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi). In December 2019, astronomers reported capturing an outburst of the comet in substantial detail by the TESS space telescope.
Philae is a robotic European Space Agency lander that accompanied the Rosetta spacecraft until it separated to land on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, ten years and eight months after departing Earth. On 12 November 2014, Philae touched down on the comet, but it bounced when its anchoring harpoons failed to deploy and a thruster designed to hold the probe to the surface did not fire. After bouncing off the surface twice, Philae achieved the first-ever "soft" (nondestructive) landing on a comet nucleus, although the lander's final, uncontrolled touchdown left it in a non-optimal location and orientation.
Dawn is a retired space probe that was launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying two of the three known protoplanets of the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. In the fulfillment of that mission—the ninth in NASA's Discovery Program—Dawn entered orbit around Vesta on July 16, 2011, and completed a 14-month survey mission before leaving for Ceres in late 2012. It entered orbit around Ceres on March 6, 2015. In 2017, NASA announced that the planned nine-year mission would be extended until the probe's hydrazine fuel supply was depleted. On November 1, 2018, NASA announced that Dawn had depleted its hydrazine, and the mission was ended. The spacecraft is currently in a derelict, but stable, orbit around Ceres.
Rosetta is a space probe designed to rendezvous with the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, perform flybys of two asteroids, and carry lander Philae until its landing on 67P. This page records a detailed timeline of this mission.
2867 Šteins is an irregular, diamond-shaped background asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 4 November 1969 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij on the Crimean peninsula. In September 2008, ESA's spacecraft Rosetta flew by Šteins, making it one of few minor planets ever visited by a spacecraft. The bright E-type asteroid features 23 named craters and has a rotation period of 6.05 hours. It was named for Soviet Latvian astronomer Kārlis Šteins.
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in Explorer program. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 2011, before being re-activated in 2013 and renamed the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE). WISE discovered thousands of minor planets and numerous star clusters. Its observations also supported the discovery of the first Y Dwarf and Earth trojan asteroid.
A Mars flyby is a movement of spacecraft passing in the vicinity of the planet Mars, but not entering orbit or landing on it. Unmanned space probes have used this method to collect data on Mars, as opposed to orbiting or landing. A spacecraft designed for a flyby is also known as a "flyby bus" or "flyby spacecraft".
NEO Surveyor, formerly called Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), then NEO Surveillance Mission, is a planned space-based infrared telescope designed to survey the Solar System for potentially hazardous asteroids.
OSIRIS is the main scientific imaging system on the orbiter of the ESA spacecraft Rosetta for its mission to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It was built by a consortium led by the German Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.
Navcam, short for navigational camera, is a type of camera found on certain robotic rovers or spacecraft used for navigation without interfering with scientific instruments. Navcams typically take wide angle photographs that are used to plan the next moves of the vehicle or object tracking.
The Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System (MIDAS) is one of several instruments on the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission which studied in-situ the environment around the active comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as it flew into the inner Solar System. MIDAS is an atomic force microscope (AFM) designed to collect dust particles emitted from the comet, and then scan them with a very sharp needle-like tip to determine their 3D structure, size and texture with very high resolution.
Lucy is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year journey to eight different asteroids, visiting a main belt asteroid as well as seven Jupiter trojans, asteroids which share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the planet. All target encounters will be flyby encounters. The Lucy spacecraft is the centerpiece of a US$981 million mission.
A flyby is a spaceflight operation in which a spacecraft passes in proximity to another body, usually a target of its space exploration mission and/or a source of a gravity assist to impel it towards another target. Spacecraft which are specifically designed for this purpose are known as flyby spacecraft, although the term has also been used in regard to asteroid flybys of Earth for example. Important parameters are the time and distance of closest approach.
CAESAR is a sample-return mission concept to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The mission was proposed in 2017 to NASA's New Frontiers program mission 4, and on 20 December 2017 it was one of two finalists selected for further concept development. On 27 June 2019, the other finalist, the Dragonfly mission, was chosen instead.
References
- ↑ Bowman, Alice (25 April 2010). "Spacecraft Hibernation: Concept vs. Reality, A Mission Operations Manager's Perspective". Space Ops 2010 Conference. AIAA SpaceOps 2010 Conference. doi:10.2514/6.2010-2161. ISBN 978-1-62410-164-9.
- ↑ West, John L.; Accomazzo, Andrea; Chmielewski, Arthur B.; Ferri, Paolo (28 June 2018). Space mission hibernation mode design: Lessons learned from Rosetta and other pathfinding missions using hibernation. 2018 IEEE Aerospace Conference. doi:10.1109/AERO.2018.8396812.
- ↑ Agle, D. C.; Brown, Dwayne; Bauer, Markus (30 June 2014). "Rosetta's Comet Target 'Releases' Plentiful Water". NASA . Retrieved 30 June 2014.
- ↑ Morin, Monte (20 January 2014). "Rise and shine Rosetta! Comet-hunting spacecraft gets wake-up call". Los Angeles Times . Science Now. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
- ↑ "New Horizons Slips into Electronic Slumber". Johns Hopkins APL. 2007. Archived from the original on November 13, 2014. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
- ↑ Wall, Mike (December 19, 2013). "Reactivated NASA Asteroid-Hunting Probe Takes First Photos in 2.5 Years". Space.com. Retrieved November 12, 2016.