Beating the OddsMonica M. Grady

The Open University

Enterprise TuesdayJudge Business School, Cambridge

Note: all images in this presentation are © ESA, unless stated otherwise

Planning and carrying out a space mission to a comet

Beating the Odds:

●What could (did) go wrong – and how were those problems solved?●Launch●Landing Site●Landing

Rosetta: Mission Timeline from Launch

September 2016Rosetta makes controlled landing on 67P. Mission Ends

November 2014Philae lands on comet

Rosetta will be ~ 573 million km from the Sun, 720 million km from Earth. One-way signal travel time will be ~ 40 minutes

July 2014

Comet P/67 Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Copyright: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

Getting closer…..September 2014

Copyright: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

14-11-2014; 10:00 (CET)

Philae from Rosetta

Copyright: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Philae

14-11-2014; 16:00-ish (CET)

Copyright: ESA

Copyright: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

The Final FrameCopyright: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

Lessons Learned:

● Be ambitious● Be flexible● Be co-operative● Be collaborative● Be optimistic

Title: Comet on 15 June 2015 – NavCamReleased: 24/06/2015 10:00 amCopyright: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0