Rosetta’s last days
The Rosetta team has released a detailed description of what will be happening in the last two weeks of the spacecraft’s mission, leading up to its landing on the comet’s surface on September 30.
Their description of the difficulty of planning maneuvers based on the complex asymmetrical gravitational field of the two-lobed comet nucleus is especially interesting.
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The Rosetta team has released a detailed description of what will be happening in the last two weeks of the spacecraft’s mission, leading up to its landing on the comet’s surface on September 30.
Their description of the difficulty of planning maneuvers based on the complex asymmetrical gravitational field of the two-lobed comet nucleus is especially interesting.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I don’t think I need to say it a third, or is this the fourth time, as even I am getting tired of it… But I will, one more time. One change in their “Passivation” command would enable Rosetta to operate on the surface, should it survive landing, just one. Simply amend the software patch to disable the transmitter after a computer restart. Then should the probe be destroyed, no harm, no foul. Should it survive though, then for at least as long as the batteries last, observations from the surface could be conducted.
If they wanted to go further and ensure a safe landing, that wouldn’t be hard either. Dwindling flight team or no, it’s just one or two more thruster firings, the first just before touch down, and the second, if bouncing is a perceived threat, after touch down to ensure the craft doesn’t rise again. Heck, I know if I were Sylvain or one of the flight engineers, I would be willing to stay a few extra hours to write the commands rather then go off on holiday. But that’s not the case here. The team is already being broken up by the bureaucrats who have already written Rosetta off. Exploration be damned, we have our stunt for the end of the mission, let’s not waste any more money.
I know I sound rather salty and in truth I feel rather salty about this waste of an opportunity to use a still functioning spacecraft for some useful gain.