Determination of The Cometary Mass Flux Onto The Rosetta Spacecraft When In Orbit About Wirtanen
Abstract
One of the science objectives of the Rosetta Radio Science Investigation (RSI) ex- periment is the determination of the total cometary mass flux (gas and dust) onto the Rosetta spacecraft when in orbit about the nucleus of comet Wirtanen starting in 2012. The RSI experiment will use the spacecrafts radio carrier frequencies at X-band (8.4 GHz) and S-band (2.3 GHz) in order to measure slight changes in the relative velocity between the spacecraft and the ground station on Earth (Doppler effect) induced by the perturbing force of the cometary gas and dust flow onto the spacecraft. These per- turbing force is estimated based on the observed gas and dust production rates (3 AU to perihelion) from the last Wirtanen apparition. The gas flow will be the dominant perturber of the spacecraft orbit, the force will exceed even the gravity attraction of the nucleus if the comet is within two astronomical units heliocentric distance.
- Publication:
-
EGS General Assembly Conference Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002EGSGA..27.2485P