The mission
Students plan and carry out a space mission in
the virtual_control_room.
The inspiration for the mission comes from the ESA mission Rosetta.
The Rosetta mission will be launched on 13 January 2003. The spacecraft
will make a nearly ten years journey through the solar system before
it reaches its target. On its way it will pass the asteroids Otawara and
Siwa in 2006 and 2008, respectively. It will pass Mars in August 2005,
make a swing-around back to Earth in 2005 and 2007, and finally reach the
comet Wirtanen in 2011.
This complicated orbit takes advantage of the gravity of
Earth and Mars to give the spacecraft the necessary energy to reach the comet.
When the spacecraft approaches the comet scientists will use the onboard
scientific instruments to get detailed information about the comet, including a
map for selecting a suitable landing spot. Eventually the spacecraft will be inserted
into orbit around the comet. The climax of the mission will be in 2012 when a
lander is released and put down on the comet’s surface. This will be
the first landing on a comet.
The main theme of the mission is searching for traces of life in the universe.
Our understanding of life on Earth is increasing rapidly. However,
there are still some very fundamental open questions:
How did life come to Earth?
Did Earth provide the right conditions for life to start spontaneously?
Or did life come to Earth from somewhere else in universe?
We don’t know, but today most scientists
believe that Earth is not the only planet in the universe where life exists.
Scientists also think that there are links between the different ‘civilizations’.
In other words, life is able to travel through the universe.
A possible explanation is that comets could be the carriers of the building
blocks of life. If we are looking for traces of life outside the Earth
the comets are therefore good places to look. Comets spend most of their time
far away from the Sun and are as such representing the most pristine material
in the solar system.
The tasks
A number of tasks will guide the students through the mission:
• Identification of a suitable comet (in this case Wirtanen) and calculation of its orbit.
• Selection of a set of experiments suitable for the mission.
• Calculation of the optimal orbit of the spacecraft, applying Newton's
and Kepler's laws.
• Launch of the mission.
• Travelling through the solar system to reach the comet, making observations of planets and asteroids when they are passed.
• Conducting detailed studies of the comet, including finding a good landing spot.
• Landing on the comet and carrying out the planned experiments.
• Drawing the conclusions from the experiments and trying to answer the main question:
The Rosetta mission is very interesting from a teaching perspective.
It is an exciting mission searching for traces of life, it includes many
facets of space exploration and astronomy, and it can illustrate topics
from mathematics, physics, biology, geology and so on.
The concepts of time and space are covered and an understanding of
life and its building blocks is fundamental.
The Rosetta mission was selected for demonstrating the concept of the
virtual_control_room. It is the intention to develop other missions in the future.