Solar Flare Interacts with Rosetta

IRON AND ICE

Solar Flare Interacts With Rosetta

Illustration of Rosetta.

Paris (ESA) Sep 20, 2005
This reporting period (26 August to 16 September 2005) covers three weeks of passive cruise, with no major activities planned and weekly ground contact with the spacecraft.

Apart for routine monitoring activities and the upload of a software patch to the Star Tracker B (on 8 September), a major unexpected event was a solar flare on 8 and 9 September, which hit the spacecraft at the beginning of the weekly non-coverage period.

When the signal was acquired for the weekly contact on 15 September the spacecraft was found with the active Star Tracker crashed in INIT mode, and the second Star Tracker (not used for attitude control) in Standby mode.

AOCS had determined the attitude over a period of 6 days using gyroscopes only, and accumulated therefore a drift of about 0.7 degrees, of which 0.3 degrees offset in the High Gain Antenna pointing direction, small enough to allow the RF signal to be received on ground.

The recovery activities took most of the ground station pass on 15 September. At the end both Star Trackers were back in Tracking mode and the nominal attitude reacquired.

No payload operations were carried out in the reporting period, and all instruments are switched off, except for SREM which is kept active in the background for radiation monitoring.

A total of 3 New Norcia passes of maximum 10 hours commanding duration were taken over the reporting period.

SPACE TRAVEL

Earth And Moon Through Rosetta's Eyes

Paris (ESA) May 04, 2005
ESA's comet chaser mission Rosetta took these infrared and visible images of Earth and the Moon, during the Earth fly-by of 4/5 March 2005 while on its way to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.