Wake up, Rosetta! The first signal from Rosetta was received by NASAs Deep Space Network at 1:18 p.m. EST (1818 GMT) and relayed to ESAs Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, which erupted in cheers and applause as the signal was confirmed. Rosettas first message home via Twitter: Hello, world! The signal came after 18 minutes of tense silence as Rosettas mission team awaited word from the spacecraft. Rosettas wakeup process took several hours as the spacecraft activated heaters and beamed a message back home. The solar-powered spacecraft had slept since mid-2011, when it sailed out near the orbit of Jupiter — 501 million miles (800 million km) from Earth — where there was not enough sunlight to power its systems. Mondays wakeup success sets the stage for what promises to be a historic spaceflight event. Once Rosetta shakes the sleep out of its eyes, the solar-powered spacecraft will begin final preparations to rendezvous with its target — Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — in May, and then enter orbit around the icy body in August. If all goes well, Rosetta will release a piggyback probe to land on the comet in November.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 07:48:45 +0000
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