An Ultraviolet Spectrometer for the Rosetta Orbiter

The Rosetta mission is a joint ESA-NASA mission scheduled for launch in January 2003 atop an Ariane-5 rocket. The trip to Comet 46P/Wirtanen will take eight years and include two asteroid flybys (Otawara in July 2006 and Siwa in July 2008). Once the satellite reaches 46P/Wirtanen in 2011, it will orbit it for two years, collecting data and landing a small probe on the surface of the comet. Rosetta will continue orbiting the comet through its perihelion passage in July 2013.

A Mission Overview slide, showing the mission phase time line, is available as a JPEG file (222Kb) or a PNG file (700Kb).

More information about the Rosetta mission can be found at the Eurpoean Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta web site.