Status ROSINA / Rosetta Mission
Rosetta, the spectacular cornerstone mission of the European Space Agenca ESA was launched, after a one year delay, on March 2 2004 at 08:17 h with an Ariane 5 rocket for its long journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko . The University of Bern is part of this mission with the key experiment ROSINA.
As time goes by...
November 27 2006
April 10, 2008
June 6, 2009 (mid-term)
January 5, 2011
Latest News:
Rosetta is in hibernation until January 20, 2014!
On December 15, 2011 the LED Display "Countdown to Rendevous" will show a four digit number for the last time! Only 1000 days left until Rosetta reaches its destination!
Newsletter Nr. 20 has been added! (February 7, 2013)
The ROSINA Newsletter 20 is available (German only). Previous Newsletter can be found here
Rosetta Spacecraft Passes Asteroid Steins, Credit & Copyright: Rosetta Team, ESA
Rosetta Spacecraft Passes Asteroid Lutetia, Credit & Copyright: Rosetta Team, ESA
2x Asteroid
Sept. 15, 2008 and July 10, 2010 Rosetta passed the two asteroids (2867) Steins and (21) Lutetia in 800 km and 3621 km respectively, exactly as planned. Very nice pictures were acquired by the OSIRIS camera (see below). More information can be found on the ESA Rosetta homepages for 
Steins and Lutetia.
3x Earth
March 4 2005
November 13 2007
November 13 2009
Three times Rosetta dashed by the Earth, in order to gain momentum. The momentum is taken from the kinetic energy of the Earth around the Sun. The Earth gets a little bit decelerated while the spacecraft gets accelerated. After three Earth flybys the velocity of Rosetta relative to the Sun was 139'200 km/h compared to the initial velocity of 108'000 km/h after launch. During all three encounters beautiful pictures were taken by the navigation cameras and by OSIRIS (see across).
The Earth during the first Flyby, taken with the Rosetta navigation camera. ESA ©2005
Antarctica (Graham Land) taken during the second flyby by the navigation camera ESA ©2007
The illuminated South Pole, taken with the OSIRIS camera during the third flyby.ESA ©2009 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Depicts: Rosetta solar array wing over Mars background. Copyright: CIVA / Philae / ESA Rosetta
Rosetta dashes by at Mars ! (Feb. 25.2007)
Only 250 km above the Martian surface with a velocity relative to Mars of more than 36‘000km/h, somebody should try to imitate Rosetta! With a superb precision the spacecraft was navigated from the team at ESOC around the red planet in order to be back on time at the Earth in November of the same year (13. Nov. 2007) . More information can be found here. (Rosetta Mars Swing-By, english)