Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....40.5606s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #56.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.563
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
2
Scientific paper
On 5 September 2008 ESA's Rosetta spacecraft successfully approached main-belt asteroid (2867) Steins, coming to within a distance of 800 km from it. Closest approach occurred at 18:58 UT with a relative velocity of 8.6 km/s. Rosetta passed on the sunlit side of the asteroid in the plane defined by the relative velocity vector and the Sun direction. This fly-by strategy allowed continuous pointing on the asteroid before, during and after closest approach as well as passing through phase angle zero. Optical navigation on the asteroid started already on 4 August 2008 as the spacecraft had to target the small asteroid (effective radius ≈ 5 km) within accuracy better than 2 km to keep it in the field of view of the science instruments during closest approach. In addition an attitude flip manoeuvre of 20 minutes duration was performed before autonomous tracking on asteroid (2867) Steins started. Altogether 14 instruments were switched on during the fly-by, providing spatially resolved multi-wavelength observations of the asteroid and in-situ measurements of its dust, plasma, magnetic, and radiation environment. Its detailed characterization will add to the understanding the different types of asteroids and to solving the puzzle of how the solar system formed and evolved. (2867) Steins was Rosetta's first nominal scientific target in its 11.5-year mission to ultimately explore the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Accomazzo Andrea
Küppers Michael
Schulz Robert
Schwehm Gerhard
Wirth K.
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