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Sunday, February 25, 2007

 

Rosetta sucessfully passes Mars

Image Credit, ESA

Rosetta, the mission to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, successfully completed its fly-by of Mars. Images were returned by the navigation cmarea and the Optical, Spectroscopic and Imaging system. Recent images can be seen here (the image bank should update soon). Gavitational manouvers such as the one Rosetta just completed are useful ways to reduce fuel needs on interplanetary journeys. However, things can often go badly wrong, with one comet mission disintegrating after an Earth flyby. Rosetta will flyby Earth in November, and reach the comet in 2014. For more information see the ESA press release and this background article.

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