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The Planetary Society Blog

By Emily Lakdawalla

Here comes Rosetta!

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Heads up! ESA's Rosetta comet-chasing mission is going to buzz by Earth again in less than a month. In anticipation of that event, Daniel Scuka has fired up the Rosetta blog again and has provided some information about the upcoming flyby:

On Friday, 13 November, 2009, at 07:46 UT, ESA's Rosetta satellite will make her third (and final) swing-by of Earth....

The ESA Flight Dynamics team have predicted Rosetta's altitude at the point of closest approach (perigee height) on 13 November to be 2481 km, slightly higher than her first swing-by in March 2005 (1954 km) and lower than her second swing-by on 13 November 2007 (5295 km). We'll update this figure as we get closer to the swing-by date itself...

The geographical point of closest approach (the point on the Earth's surface over which she'll make closest approach) is 109°E and 8°S - just off the coast of the Indonesian island of Java.

Click to enlarge > Crescent Earth This unusual photo of a crescent Earth was taken by the OSIRIS wide-angle camera on Rosetta about two hours before closest approach on its second Earth flyby, at 19:05 UTC on November 13, 2007. Antarctica lies at the bottom of the crescent. Credit: ESA © 2005 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / RSSD / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA

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