Europe set for billion-euro gamble with comet-chasing probe

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — A European comet-chasing spacecraft is set for a nail-biting close encounter this weekend with Mars.

The billion-euro (1.3-billion-dollar) probe Rosetta will come within 250 kilometers (156 miles) of the Red Planet's surface, using Martian gravity to correct its course in one of the longest and costliest treks in the history of unmanned space exploration.

The European Space Agency (ESA) probe, launched in March 2004, is designed to rendezvous with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 after a voyage of 7.1 billion kilometers (4.4 billion miles).

It will send a refrigerator-sized lab, called Philae, to the comet's surface to investigate the rock's chemistry.

To make the meeting, it is using four gravitational assists from Earth and Mars....