Newsgroup: it.scienza.astronomia
Titolo: Nuovo obiettivo di Rosetta

Dall'ultimo numero della rivista "Science"
UTRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS--Rosetta, Europe's groundbreaking mission to
chase
and land on a comet, has its sights set on a new target: comet
Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Originally due for a launch in January to comet
Wirtanen, the $1 billion Rosetta was put on ice due to concerns over
the
Ariane 5 launcher.
Full story at
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/299/5613/1638b?etoc
purtroppo io ho solamente l'accesso gratuito (e quindi limitato) alla
rivista, se qualcuno nell'NG avesse l'accesso completo (per esempio
tramite l'universita') potrebbe fornirci qualche particolare in piu'.
Paolo

 Paolo
Interessante, anche su
http://bric.postech.ac.kr/science/97now/03_3now/030311d.html
Strano sul sito Rosetta non se ne parla ancora
(
http://sci.esa.int/home/rosetta/
)
Ciao!
A.

> Strano sul sito Rosetta non se ne parla ancora
In effetti la cosa non e' ancora stata approvata ufficialmente.
Ecco quello che scrive "Science":
--------------------------------------------
Star-Crossed Comet Chaser Eyes New Target
by Govert Schilling*
UTRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS--It may be grounded, but at least Rosetta,
Europe's groundbreaking mission to chase and land on a comet, now has
its sights set on a new target: comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Originally
due for a launch in January to comet Wirtanen, the $1 billion Rosetta
was put on ice due to concerns over the Ariane 5 launcher (Science, 24
January, p. 486). According to project scientist Gerhard Schwehm of
the
European Space Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, the
Rosetta team has now thrown its weight behind the new rendezvous, with
a
launch date in February 2004.
Rosetta's new itinerary still must be approved by the European Space
Agency's Science Programme Committee, which will meet in mid-May. But
Schwehm says flying to Churyumov-Gerasimenko is the safest option. One
alternative was to stick with Wirtanen but launch a year later in
January 2004 with the more powerful Russian Proton rocket. But the
team
decided there was not enough time to adapt the Proton, says Schwehm.
All
Ariane 5 launchers were grounded after the failure of an upgraded
version last December, but the regular Ariane 5 is expected to fly
again
later this year.
The new target, discovered in 1969 by two Ukrainian astronomers,
orbits
the sun every 6.6 years and last visited the inner solar system in
August 2002. Like Wirtanen, it's a small, not particularly active
comet,
making it suitable for a soft landing. Rosetta will catch up to the
comet in late 2014 and later will release a small lander to touch down
on the icy surface. Churyumov-Gerasimenko is larger than Wirtanen and
thus has a stronger gravitational pull. "In the next few weeks, we
will
study the landing scenario in detail," Schwehm says.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questo invece e' quanto scrive Flight International:
Europe's Rosetta comet explorer may have found a new target. The
European Space Agency spacecraft was due to rendezvous with the comet
Wirtanen in 2012, but missed its January launch window because of the
Ariane 5 grounding. The Astrium-built Rosetta may be now be launched
in February next year with the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as its
target, arriving there in 2014