Cheers as space probe passes close by Mars

Published on 26/02/2007 00:18

A EUROPEAN spacecraft carried out a close flyby of Mars yesterday, a crucial manoeuvre in its meandering, ten-year voyage through the solar system to make the first soft landing on a comet.

Applause broke out in the European Space Agency's mission control centre in western Germany as the Rosetta comet probe's radio signal was picked up. The contact had followed 15 tense minutes of silence as the craft passed behind the Red Planet.

Rosetta used Mars's gravitational field to change course and head towards two similar flybys of Earth this year and in 2009, which will accelerate it towards its distant target comet.

"Rosetta is on its way," said Manfred Warhaut, ESA's head of mission operations.

Rosetta blasted off on 2 March, 2004, from Kourou, French Guiana, atop an Ariane-5 booster rocket. Its destination - in 2014 - is comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a three-mile long irregularly shaped chunk of ice, frozen gases and dust named for its discoverers, Soviet astronomers Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko.

Rosetta will go into orbit around it and release a small lander that will touch down and seek to drill into the surface, then radio back an analysis of its makeup.

Because the comet's gravity is so weak, the lander will use a harpoon and spikes to catch hold.

Researchers hope it will be able to photograph the dramatic appearance of the comet's tail, a stream of gases and dust that arises when the icy body warms as it orbits nearer the sun.

Comets are among the most primitive objects in the 4.6 billion-year-old solar system and their composition is considered to hold clues about its early development.