Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft was headed for a mission-ending crash yesterday on the comet it has stalked for two years, a dramatic conclusion to a 12-year odyssey to demystify our Solar System’s origins.
Sent by ground controllers on a leisurely, 14-hour freefall, the space pioneer was engaged in a last-gasp spurt of science-gathering on the 19km journey to its icy comet tomb.
The spacecraft was expected to make impact at 10:38am GMT, give or take two minutes, the European Space Agency said after overnight measurements allowed it to narrow down the forecast time of death.
Photo: AP
Confirmation was expected to arrive 40 minutes later, the time it takes for a message to travel between Rosetta and Earth, when the spacecraft’s signal dies off ground controllers’ computer screens.
“Everything is going according to plan,” project scientist Matt Taylor said.
“We had a few small things going on this morning, but it was mainly due to people resetting computers or backing computers up. Everything’s looking smooth,” he said.
The craft has been sending back close-up shots of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and “we’re seeing some really nice images,” Taylor said. “We just wait for the end now.”
It was also meant to sniff the comet’s gassy coma, or halo, and measure its temperature and gravity from closer than ever before.
Rosetta has been commanded to join long-spent robot lander Philae on 67P for a never-ending journey around the Sun.
With the comet zipping through space at a speed of more than 14km per second, it was programmed to make a “controlled impact” at human walking speed, about 90cm per second.
Mission scientists expect it would bounce and tumble about before settling — but Rosetta’s exact fate will never be known as it was instructed to switch off on impact.
The comet chaser was never designed to land.
“You can see some of the flight control team, the people who work here in mission control, are beginning to get more emotional because they can see the end,” Taylor said.
“People who work on mission control, their entire existence is based on making sure the spacecraft stays healthy, so they have to switch their head round. It’s a 180-degree turn, now you’re going to kill the spacecraft,” he said.
For the scientists like himself, who will sift through the data gathered for years, possibly decades, to come, there was also a sense of excitement, Taylor said.
“It’s a bittersweet thing. There is something about the attachment, there’s something about that spacecraft being there. I will feel a sense of loss, surely,” he said.
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