Members of the media are invited to ESA Headquarters in Paris, France, on 15 September for the announcement of the primary landing site for Rosetta’s lander Philae. The event will also be live-streamed for those not attending the event at www.esa.int/rosetta and www.livestream.com/eurospaceagency.
Draft Programme (subject to change)
ESA Headquarters
8–10 rue Mario Nikis
75738 Paris Cedex 15
10:30 Doors open
11:00 Fred Jansen, Rosetta mission manager, ESA
Landing: the next big step after wake-up and arrival
11:10 Stephan Ulamec, Philae lander manager, DLR
Presentation of primary and back-up landing sites and the respective descents
Holger Sierks, PI OSIRIS instrument, MPS Göttingen
Detailed images of the primary landing site
11:25 Jean-Pierre Bibring, Lead lander scientist, IAS Orsay
Scientific expectations regarding the primary landing site
11:35 Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta flight director, ESA
Timeline and operational challenges of the landing
11:45 Fred Jansen, Rosetta mission manager, ESA
Next steps on the way to landing
11:55 Questions & Answers
Opportunity for individual interviews
12:30 End of programme
Media are kindly requested to register by 10 September at: www.esa.int/RosettaLandingSite
For more details, please see the official call for media on the ESA Portal.
Discussion: 5 comments
Thank You Emily as always 😀
This proves how well the Rosetta mission is proceeding, if a final landing site for Philae can be decided upon as early as Friday 12th September 2014.
incredibly early actually, I expected late October at the very earliest, possibly almost up to the week prior to the landing date.
Wonderful news 😀
Sorry meant Monday 15th September 2014, my bad, still incredibly early though 😀
Hi Andrew, indeed the final Go/No Go decision is made in mid-October after further detailed analysis and operational preparation has been made. See this article for a detailed outline and timeline: https://sci.esa.int/rosetta/54468-selecting-a-landing-site-for-rosettas-lander-philae/
For a public presentation I have to give I wonder if you could tell me how high the gravitational acceleration is on Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
An object of equal mass on the Moon weighs only 16.6% of its weight on Earth. How does that compare to the comet?
Thanks in advance for your reply!
That is very easy if one ignores the comet’s nonsphericity. Its mass was recently measured from its pull on Rosetta. It is about 10^(13) kg. From the size of the comet, I’ll use a distance of 2 km from its center. That makes its acceleration of gravity about 1.7*10^(-4) m/s^2, or 1.7*10^(-5) times the Earth’s. Its escape velocity is about 0.8 m/s^2.
On the subject of the comet’s gravity, how much progress has been made on getting its gravity’s nonsphericity? Or is Rosetta still too far away to get much on that? That ought to provide some clues about its mass distribution.