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rfmcdonaldThe European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, set to explore Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, has woken up from its hibernation. Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson reports.
The probe's Twitter account is @ESA_Rosetta.
The silence from the live video feed from the ESA’s space operations center in Darmstadt, Germany was almost deafening. Scientists and engineers were waiting to receive a signal from the Rosetta spacecraft, which was supposed to come out of hibernation today to begin its mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in earnest. Finally, after waiting nearly 45 minutes into the window of time when the spacecraft was supposed to send a signal, a little blip appeared on the screens of the spectrum analyzers and the room erupted in cheers.
“After waiting over two and a half years, what is three-quarters of an hour!” said Fred Jansen, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager. “The spacecraft is there, it’s awake and the science team knows there are two busy years ahead of them. Now we have to work hard. Thanks to the team that achieved this.”
“I think I can speak on behalf of everyone here and everyone on Twitter: that was rather stressful!” said Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist. “The work begins now and I think we’ll have a fun-filled two years ahead, so let’s get on it!”
[. . .]
Rosetta was placed into hibernation in June 2011, with only the computer and several heaters remaining active as the spacecraft cruised out to nearly 800 million km from the warmth of the Sun, beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Today, as Rosetta’s orbit came back to within 673 million km from the Sun, there was enough solar energy to power the spacecraft fully again and Rosetta’s pre-programmed internal ‘alarm clock’ woke up the spacecraft after a record 957 days of hibernation. After warming up its key navigation instruments, coming out of a stabilizing spin, and aiming its main radio antenna at Earth, Rosetta sent a signal to let mission operators know it had survived the most distant part of its journey.
The probe's Twitter account is @ESA_Rosetta.
