Rosetta's final descent

[pluto (Hugh)]

In case anyone missed it, Rosetta is landing on (crashing into very slowly) comet 67P at around 7pm aest this evening.

Here's an image from an altitude of 16kms: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Ima...met_from_16_km

[pluto (Hugh)]

The last ever NAVCAM image from Rosetta:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Ima...17.4_km_NavCam

[pluto (Hugh)]

More awesomeness from just over 11kms:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Ima...w-angle_camera

[xelasnave]

Thanks for posting.
Great stuff.
Alex

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Thanks for posting.
Great stuff.

What amazing times we live in

Getting closer:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Ima...w-angle_camera


Also I think my time maths was wrong from my first post, I think the landing is around 10pm aest

[xelasnave]

I am surprised how few the views have been.
I would have thought a higher interest.
Alex

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I am surprised how few the views have been.
I would have thought a higher interest.

Maybe they're all following over at the ESA blog:
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/
Or the twitter feeds:
https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta
https://twitter.com/esaoperations
Or the livestream:
http://rosetta.esa.int/

.. or maybe we're the only ones who care...


Also, to correct my previous correction, the landing is at around 9:20pm aest - however, I'm not sure if that is the actual landing time or it that's when we'll get confirmation.

[xelasnave]

I suspected there would be other places but I bet most don't care and are more interested in flavoured lip gloss.
Alex

[pluto (Hugh)]

All over, last image (note that the camera can't focus that close which is why it's blurry, plus the image is smaller and heavily compressed so they could send it back before it shut down):
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09...nt-image-51-m/

[PCH (Paul)]

Amazing stuff Hugh, - thanks for sharing. What incredible times we live in.

[DJT (David)]

Thanks for posting, Hugh. I have friends who worked on this project many years ago so it's great to see the final images

cheers

[pfitzgerald (Paul)]

Thanks for sharing Hugh - I enjoyed following it.

Paul

[Ric]

Amazing pictures, all in all a very successful mission.

Looking at those pictures one cannot help but think of the whale in Hitch Hikers guide.

"What's this big round thing coming towards me? I wonder if it will be friends?"

[sil (Steve)]

Very disappointed that missions are destroyed. Why not leave the probes/oribters/etc out there and let others take over recording data? it could be a way for other countries, universities, teams to get into space exploration without using relying on government owned earth infrastructure.
Amateurs have always tried to track things like sputnick and voyager so if you open up the expensive hardware to the public people will get something together.

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by sil

Very disappointed that missions are destroyed. Why not leave the probes/oribters/etc out there and let others take over recording data? it could be a way for other countries, universities, teams to get into space exploration without using relying on government owned earth infrastructure.
Amateurs have always tried to track things like sputnick and voyager so if you open up the expensive hardware to the public people will get something together.

I think there are different reasons why different missions are ended with a still working spacecraft. I think in this case it's almost out of fuel and once they can no longer control it, if they don't crash it, it will just drift in an orbit similar to the comet, but getting further away, and it will spend the next few hundred (thousand?) years not really anywhere near anything interesting. It doesn't have enough fuel to remain in the vicinity of 67P much longer let alone to change its orbit anywhere near enough to enable a flyby of anything else we know of. Also the extra little bit of unique data they'll get from a controlled descent (slow crash) is probably worth more to them than the vague possibility of something interesting at some time in the future.

For something like Cassini, Juno, or Galileo, they are destroyed (burnt up entering Jupiter/Saturn atmosphere) at the end of the mission because they don't want to lose control and potentially have the spacecraft crash into, and contaminate, one of the potentially life friendly moons like Titan, Enceladus, Europa, etc.

It's a shame, I agree, but I'm sure they wouldn't do it if they thought they could get more science out of them. Plus we've got enough orbital debris around our own planet and I think it's good that we're not just leaving junk whizzing around the Solar System unless it's necessary

[sil (Steve)]

I still think it'd be both a good test of the actual hardware performance beyond its intended/expected lifespan, Putting into a prolonged death dive once they stop gathering data would be a chance for amateurs to develop a community network and people with brains can test out methods of getting better data from the available signal can get a chance they will never get without launching their own gear. Even if NASA/ESA sell a license that will enable full acess except maybe directional control It will help come budget time, but just throwing away functional hardware so fast I don't feel is in everyones best interests.

How many children dream of being an astronaut these days? Whereas letting the community "have a play" will inspire so many people besides the educational opprtunities for tomorrows engineers would be immense. NASA etc can wash their hands completey, "open" the craft to anyone who can transmit and receive with their own gear. Ok it won't guarentee a new patentable technology to make money from but hell in the spirit of sharing (beyond a few approved JPGs)and inspiration it would do wonders. For a start "who" would be allowed to choose a target to turn a camera towards and for how long, the logistics of this alone will take a lot of time and bickering to reach a workable consensus which could become a usable solution for the big space agencies instead political powers having vetos based on personal gain.

Its not like any craft get to locations in our solar system overnight, Mission windows get booked out decades in advance. So why not have the craft take decades to spiral to destruction while nothing else is going to be in the neighbourhood? The public community would make do without being able to reposition craft and it will have tons to contribute and provide procedures for discoveries to be verified. Even just the technical challenge of getting random craft to track items and other craft so we can launch exploration probes out in random directions and have them communicate and funnel information back to earth. Just having eyes out there gives us a vangtage point to triangulate with making early warning detection possible for asteroids etc much faster with better accuracy. Damnit we dont have to only do things because we expect to be paid for it.

Sorry for going off topic ranting. I've enjoyed Rosetta and other missions in recent years and its disheartening to see just how quickly useful hardware gets deliberately destroyed. May not be state of the art or scientifically interesting beyond the mission for the big boys, but for countries without space agencies it could be a foot in the door and show its not as expensive as they thought. Plus what a chance for universities and the rest of us to get some experience and maybe contribute. With the last transit of Venus I spent months planning what I wanted the photograph, how and from where and capture the entire event, it was an amazing experience for me. Plus I got to contribute to a project in Germany that was a modern take on the observation project Captain Cook took part in to get observational data and measurements from around the world and calculate the Earth Sun distance. OK not a scientific breakthrough but an interesting exercise, not one i could contribute to mathematically but I was able to deduce and prove that there were precision errors due to rounding values with the tools used in the project that would make the results bad. It wasnt much of a big deal but it was something I am happy I was a part of and even my small contribution was enough to feel a part of something big. It was published in German (I should try to find if its in print, i got a pdf but it turned out I was the only person in the southern hemisphere who shot the entire transit and contributed to the project. I learned heaps about the collaboration process andit gave me a huge boost in my interest in astronomy and something meaningless that i am still proud of. To allow ordinary folks to be a part of even dead space missions will do so much for the whole field of astronomy!

[pluto (Hugh)]

I hear what you're saying but I don't think it's as simple as that.
For example, Rosetta, let's say ESA kept using it until it was out of fuel and then somehow released all the information needed to communicate with it and control it. Amateur radio nerds* would have to organise people and (very expensive and specialised) hardware to communicate with it. They would need a big transmitter I'm assuming, like something from the DSN.
And if they did all that, and managed to assume control, then what would they do with it? They can't point it as it's out of fuel, and pretty soon it'll be too far from the Sun to generate much power so most of its instruments won't be very useful. Even while it's close enough to the Sun to power some of it's instruments the measurements wouldn't be anything too significant as the space between Jupiter and the inner Solar System is fairly well traveled.

If all they get out of it is the challenge of communicating with it then that's great, but is it worth the hassle?

Don't get me wrong, I loved following the 'amateur' attempt to communicate and control ISEE-3 a couple of years ago, but I do think it's a good thing that we try and clean up after ourselves and not leave defunct satellites throughout our Solar System these days. I know it seems like a waste but they (NASA/ESA) don't do it just to be nasty


Obviously Cassini/Juno/Galileo/etc. are a different story, they need to be destroyed in a controlled way and that needs to happen while they still have control and fuel. That means a controlled atmospheric entry so you can't just leave them to "take decades to spiral to destruction" - doesn't work that way unfortunately.


* used affectionately

[sil (Steve)]

For a one off I agree odds are nobody would bother. But consider this disposal is now standard opporating procedure so people would try with what they already have (HAM radio and amateur radio astronomers) and from there work out how to get all these "useless" antennas working together, better noise reduction research.

If parts can start to come together I think we'll find people willing to "upgrade" their gear, our competetive nature of oneupmanship, Universities would get involved, perhaps business sponsorship etc we dont know how far these things will grow, look at where the Internet has gotten to.

I find it defeatist to just assume people won't bother because people actually will even just to prove you wrong But if the opportunity never exists nobody will ever know. What about SETI@Home and other projects? I happily participated my spare computer time for those. If we dont try, we dont learn. We DONT have to profit before even trying.

Of course existing organisations have procedures that slow things down or destroy workable ideas. But that doesn't bother Musk, he'll make things happen despite the doubters. We have to risk failure to progress.

Happy to leave it as a difference of opinion. The doctors argued blue in the face I would never walk again, but I beat paralysis enough to be able to walk and live independently so some conservative mindsets rub me the wrong way. I've enjoyed exploring this idea but i think we've killed the thread, sorry, I do so much thinking these days my brain sometimes grabs a tiny thread and runs fast and far. No agro intended in any of this. Hhmm, now do NASA have a public forum?