http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html
Rosetta Comet Mission Finds a Target space.com May 29, 2003 The European Space Agency's (ESA) delayed Rosetta mission to a comet is back on track. During its meeting on May 13-14, ESA's Science Program Committee decided Rosetta should be sent to Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta was originally designed as a long haul mission to encounter Comet Wirtanen in 2011. But a December 11, 2002 failure of a souped-up version of the Ariane 5 launcher -- using hardware common to a standard-version Ariane 5 that would shove Rosetta into space -- caused a major review of the booster. A special review board was established to advise on the launch of Rosetta, given the Ariane 5 booster problems. That board's findings prompted the rocket's operator, Arianespace, and ESA to postpone Rosetta's departure. The result: Rosetta's launch was left in limbo. ESA has now come to grips with the Rosetta mission. The decision has been made to send the comet probe spaceward to reconnoiter Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Blastoff aboard an Ariane 4 G-plus rocket is now set for February 2004 from Kourou, French Guiana. Rendezvous with the new target comet is expected in November 2014. ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
