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Andrews, Dan; Morse, Andrew; Barber, Simeon; Leese, Mark; Morgan, Geraint; Sheridan, Simon; Wright, Ian and Pillinger, Colin
(2010).
URL: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2010/EP...
Abstract
Rosetta is the European Space Agency ‘planetary cornerstone’ mission intended to solve many of the unanswered questions surrounding the small bodies of the Solar System. Launched in March 2004 it is now over halfway through its decade long cruise, leading up to entering orbit around the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in mid-2014. To date, this cruise has included three gravitational assist manoeuvres using Earth, one such manoeuvre past Mars, and a 800 km distant targeted scientific flyby of the 5 km diameter E-type asteroid 2867
Šteins. The latter returned a plethora of data to be compared with the comet observations to come. It is anticipated that Rosetta will have passed within 3,100 km of the 100 km diameter M-type asteroid 21 Lutetia during a targeted flyby taking place on July 10th 2010.