6-30-2014 | Caleb A. Scharf
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Over the coming month the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission will fire its main engines no less than eight times to tweak its interplanetary intercept course with Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko; eventually sidling up to the 4 kilometer wide cometary nucleus at about 7.9 meters per second in early August. At that point, with some gentler rocket burns, the roughly 3,000 lb spacecraft will try to insert itself into an orbit around this lumpy body. A couple of months later, after the surface of the nucleus has been mapped, Rosetta will release Philae – a 200 lb lander that will drift down to the body and attach itself with harpoons and drills.
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