Rosetta comet landing: 'We can do amazing things, if we dream big'
After three months in orbit around its target comet, Rosetta's Philae lander will be deployed
from the orbiter on November 12, 2014. Once in position, the lander
will self-deploy, unfold its three legs and descend. Once on the
surface, a harpoon will anchor it in place and a thruster will push the
lander downwards.
HIDE CAPTION
Rosetta landing: 10 years in the making
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Rosetta mission will this week attempt to put a lander on the surface of a comet
- It has taken 10 years for the ESA-led spacecraft to rendezvous with its target
- Experts weigh in on why this is a monumental achievement for humanity
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(CNN) -- From the realms of science fiction to
science fact, the Rosetta mission will reach its climax on Wednesday,
when the mission scientists attempt their most audacious feat to date --
to put a robotic lander on a moving comet.
It has been a decade-long
chase around the solar system for the spacecraft to catch up with its
constantly moving target, Churyumov-Gerasimenko -- better known as Comet
67P. For many who gaze dreamily at the stars above, this is one of the
most exciting thing to happen in recent memory. But why should everyone
else care?
To answer this question,
CNN has brought together five experts in space science to explain why
the Rosetta mission is a monumental achievement, regardless of whether
or not they succeed in putting the Philae lander on the surface of the
comet.
Matt Taylor
Matt Taylor, European Space Agency project scientist:
Rosetta is a big deal,
enough to be the sexiest mission ever. Rosetta has rendezvoused, orbited
and will soon deploy a lander to the comet surface. If that isn't
enough firsts, the orbiter will remain alongside the comet for over a
year, watching it grow in activity as it approaches the Sun, getting to
within 180 million km in summer next year, when the comet will be
expelling hundreds of kilograms of material every second.
It's got an awesome
profile: the adventure of the decade-long journey necessary to capture
its prey, flying past the Earth, Mars and two asteroids on the way. The
years of preparation dating back to the days of the Giotto mission. The
challenges of flying over 6 billion km to reach the comet, to bulls eye
getting into orbit, even after a 31-month nap, around a body we knew
next to nothing about at launch, other than it was going to constantly
push us away more, the closer we got. The passion and dedication of the
teams working for so long on Rosetta to make it work, to do what it was
designed for -- science.
Rosetta will show us how a
comet works. We have been to comets before with spacecraft, observed
them for centuries from the ground, but for the first time with Rosetta,
we will "live" alongside a comet for over a year, sniffing and tasting
it, scratching it with the lander, seeing how it is made up and how it
evolves in time with its interaction with energy of the Sun.
Thought to be
predominantly made of ice, comets are also considered to have been a
possible delivery mechanism for water to the Earth, along with organic
material that could have provided the building blocks for proteins and
possibly life. Comets are considered frozen relics of the formation of
the solar system and examining comets provides us with an insight into
the conditions and composition of that time. We are doing archeology
into how our planet was formed and evolved to what we live on today.
It's important to understand where we came from, to get an idea of where
we should be going.
Using
the CIVA camera on Rosetta's Philae lander, the spacecraft snapped a
'selfie' showing comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from a distance of
about 16 km from the surface of the comet, in October.
ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
Kathrin Altwegg
Kathrin Altwegg, principal investigator of ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Sensor for Ion and Neutral Analysis):
After a long and tedious
voyage, Columbus must have experienced similar emotions a few hundred
years ago when he finally saw land as we did when, after 10 years, the
European cometary mission Rosetta finally got a glimpse of its target --
comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Although we already had pictures of a
few comets, we were very much surprised by its irregular shape and its
rich chemical composition.
And analysis of the cometary coma
by our mass spectrometers ROSINA continues to give almost daily new,
amazing insights into the ancient history of the formation of our Sun,
the planets and the origin of life. To be part of this mission and to
see a dream come true is a fantastic experience which makes all the
years of hard work well worthwhile.
Where do we come from
and where do we go to? Are we alone in the universe? These are the
questions which are an important part of humanity, the center of most
religions, themes for all big philosophers. To be able to answer some
aspects of these questions by science is the main driver for cometary
missions.
Rosetta is the first
mission following a comet over a long period; it's the first mission
close to a comet (less than 10 km) and it will be the first mission with
a cometary lander. It's a mission full of discoveries in line with
great missions like Voyager or Cassini.
Claudia Alexander
Claudia Alexander, project scientist, U.S. Rosetta Project, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA:
Rosetta is an attempt to
explore not only an object (comets) that we don't yet fully understand,
but also reach backwards in time, like a detective, to piece together
more about our origins. The mission calls on us to be bold, to take on
risk.
For an engineer, the
challenge is like winning the World Series with a home run in the bottom
of the ninth in game seven -- something that will call upon all her
skill to pull off. I know plenty of people who love a challenge like
that.
I've waited 10 years to
finally be "here," waiting for the landing to take place, and for the
comet to start revealing its mysteries. It's a dream come true to get
our hands on this substance, metaphorically, and get the physics right,
by bringing a laboratory to a comet.
Exploration of the
planets, of our solar system, extends our "vision" as a human race. We
need to have such vision to appreciate/nurture Earth, and our place in
the universe. The rewards are to add to our collective knowledge,
improve our understanding of forming solar system(s), and understanding
more about how materials come together to create environment(s) where
life might thrive.
Artist's impression of Rosetta's lander Philae (front view) on the surface of comet 67P.
ESA/ATG medialab
Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Reynolds, science fiction writer, former astrophysicist for the ESA:
After a 10-year mission
to hook itself into orbit around 67P, the flow of science from Rosetta
has already commenced. 67P is providing surprises, from its double-lobed
shape to its varied surface texturing. Not content with looking,
though, Rosetta will shortly deploy an even smaller spacecraft to land,
anchor itself, and perform physical examination of the surface. Images
from Rosetta, backdropped by the comet, already resemble stills from a
science fiction film. It's a reminder that we can do amazing things, if
we dream big.
Why should we care about
a mountain-sized ball of dark, dirty ice, when there are so many other
places out there? Comets are windows into the dawn of our solar system,
telling us about the chemical ingredients that most likely formed the
infant seas of our own Earth. Understand comets, and we have a shot at
understanding the genesis of life itself -- and for me there is no
bigger or more exciting theme than that. This is science fiction made
real in terms of the achievement of the mission itself, but Rosetta is
also taking us a step closer to answering science fiction's grandest
question of all: are we alone?
Denton S. Ebel
Denton S. Ebel, cosmochemist from the American Museum of Natural History:
There are so many
"firsts" with Rosetta that make it an amazing, ambitious, and
potentially rewarding mission. As a cosmochemist, I'm eager for the
chemical and isotopic measurements. Comets preserve the first solids,
including ices, formed in the solar system, so the Rosetta measurements
will tell us a whole lot about how the solar system formed. Our comet
samples from the Stardust mission contained abundant high-temperature
minerals. How these rocks formed so far from the young Sun is a major
cosmochemical puzzle. As a human, I want to know the internal structure
of comets.
The Rosetta radar
experiment will reveal for the first time how a comet is put together.
We need to know these things so that we can protect the Earth and
humanity from comets, which have hit the Earth many times in the past.
Rosetta is an engineering marvel, as are the MESSENGER and Dawn
spacecraft returning important information from Mercury and the
asteroid belt. All these missions enlighten humanity about our cosmic
neighborhood. We take ownership, and by making it "our" solar system, we
set the stage for humans to venture beyond the Earth-Moon system. That
is the path to a positive future for our species.
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