How Rosetta wakes up from deep space hibernation
Visualisation of how the Rosetta spacecraft wakes up from deep space hibernation, 673 million kilometres from the Sun, on 20 January 2014.
Prior to entering hibernation on 8 June 2011, Rosetta was oriented so that its solar arrays faced the Sun, and it began rotating once per minute for stability. The only devices left running were its computer and several heaters.
Rosetta’s computer is programmed to carry out a sequence of events to re-establish contact with the Earth on 20 January, starting with an ‘alarm clock’ at 10:00 GMT. Immediately after, the star trackers begin to warm up. Around 6 hours later the thrusters are fired and the slow rotation stops. A slight adjustment is made to Rosetta’s orientation to ensure that the solar arrays now face the Sun. Then the star trackers switch on to determine its attitude. The spacecraft rotates towards Earth, and the transmitter is switched on. Then Rosetta’s high-gain antenna points to Earth and the signal is sent. The journey takes 45 minutes before the signal is received and mission controllers can begin to check Rosetta’s health, ready for the next phase of the mission.
The first opportunity for receiving a signal on Earth is between 17:30 GMT and 18:30 GMT.
Credits: ESA/ATG medialab; music: B. Lynne.
Altitude or attitude?
I am so glad that some humans are doing great things. And I am disappoint that its not my nation. This must have been what the rest of the world was feeling after the moon landings.
Impressive display of human ingenuity and courage.I cant wait to see the data from the experiments.
why would you use engines to slow your rotation? just enter Time Warp for a couple seconds!
awake
Just over one hour to go!! In deep space hibernation since 8 June 2011 – an alarm will #wakeuprosetta at 10:00 UT/11:00 CET. Here's a look what will happen next for #Rosetta …
attitude?
Where did the ESA managed to get this ultra HD, hyper realistic version of Kerbal Space Program? Or did they just made their own version of KSP and forgot to sell it to the masses and make money while doing so?
Guten Morgen 🙂
antenna is limited in the rotation? may break the connection 🙂
An introduction to Rosetta and and journey so far: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9_B2ZTmK739cxonmTD3foA1qxZUgWCoG
Its absolutely amazing to me the grand scale of this. So far away but still functioning and can communicate with Earth!!! Amazing!!! I love space stuff soo much! Thanks for the awesome video. Very interesting 🙂
Sometimes I wonder if somewhere in space there are hibernating alien spacecrafts lurking in weird places and waiting for the next prey to appear
bye sleep well off