It was a busy night for the Rosetta and Philae operations team, reported Rosetta flight director Andrea Accomazzo during this morning’s press briefing at ESA’s spacecraft operations centre (ESOC), who delivered the news that the lander Philae did not switch on correctly at first. But, after a reboot, the lander successfully powered up, and preparations are now continuing as planned.
Andrea also reported that the flight dynamics for the Rosetta orbiter looks good, and that the final orbit determination will be made this afternoon.
“We’re ready for tonight with no concerns,” he said.
Tonight sees the start of a series of critical Go/NoGo decisions that must be made before separation can occur (see https://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/07/landing-operations-the-most-critical-moments-you-should-watch-for/ for a summary of these milestones).
We’ll report the outcomes in blog posts and on our social media channels, and you can also follow live from 19:00 GMT/20:00 CET via esa.int/rosetta.
Discussion: 16 comments
Best of luck to all of you!
I.S . want a dark age but you shall give us a Space Age.
I wish you a fair wind and a following sea little Philae. An extension of ourselves…dare to dream!
Hey Guys, cross fingers for tomorrow…. thank you to work on this dream.
I will be eagerly following the blog for the events set to take place tonight. Great job from all. My best wishes are with you and hope all goes well.
So far everything was well and a see no reason that this trend will not continue as you seem to know what you are doing and do this excellent.
If Murphy would show up its still OK and if the lander is settled and the orbiter is parked you can relax a lot.
I must say congratulation to the team as you are the one that made this mission successful. The other teams had an easy going thanks to you and i hope they will show their appretiation.
One question remains, are there any plans for the Rosetta once tending to get out of reach? It might last for quite a few years beyond the planed time line. Is it possible to park further out and hope to make contact again for the next perihelion approach?
The IT helpdesk’s first suggestion – try turning it off and on again – works! I bet there were some relieved people over there.
Good luck to all!
Best wishes for a successful mission from Massachusetts, USA!
(and +1 for “turning it off and on again” 🙂
Thumbs up ! Great work already, very impressive stuff.
Looking forward to learn from Philae
I’m sitting on tenterhooks waiting for the release and landing of Philae onto the comet. This is so exciting. Best wishes for all to go as planned.
Holy smoke! I can’t believe the moment is here. This is truly an exciting endeavor – historical! Break a leg folks!
It’s been great to follow this unfolding mission for my children and me, to show the elite applying maths, science, engineering and imagination to make dreams come true. Just make sure Philae doesn’t bounce off ‘cos we’ll have front row seats!
Colleagues and I at the School of Systems Engineering, Reading University, wish you every success.
It will clearly have been hard-earned and much deserved.
Guy
So proud to learn that the flight director is Italian !! I’m studying Aerospace engineering and now i’ve got another hero !! So proud to be Italian and even more proud to be EUROPEAN !! Go ESA !!
I have watched “NASA” flights here in the “United States” since 1958 but this wonderful endeavor is truly incredible. The team brought together by the “ESA” to even reach this point can not be expressed with words. This is the beauty of science, the wonders of the mind, “To Go Where None Have Gone Before”. i will watch all many of you. Peace
Well done to everyone for getting this far. I’ll be biting my nails tonight! I wish the teams and the spacecraft every success – by this time tomorrow night we could be looking at the surface of a comet!
Thank you! Next time I have a field engineer at the other side of the world with a misfunctioning device and my team will need to tell him “try to switch it off and on again” … it will sound better! 😉
Seriously: that was one of the coolest action I could think of: cycling power at a distance of 3.3 AU!