From: hils@saynotospam.net   
      
   (I missed this announcement from a week ago.)   
      
   "ESA today [June 23] confirmed that its Rosetta mission will be extended   
   until the end of September 2016, at which point the spacecraft will most   
   likely be landed on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. [...]   
      
   ESA’s Science Programme Committee has given formal approval to continue   
   the mission for an additional nine months. At that point, as the comet   
   moves far away from the Sun again, there will no longer be enough solar   
   power to run Rosetta’s set of scientific instrumentation efficiently. [...]   
      
   Continuing its study of the comet in the year following perihelion will   
   give scientists a fuller picture of how a comet’s activity waxes and   
   wanes along its orbit. [...]   
      
   During the extended mission, the team will use the experience gained in   
   operating Rosetta in the challenging cometary environment to carry out   
   some new and potentially slightly riskier investigations, including   
   flights across the night-side of the comet to observe the plasma, dust,   
   and gas interactions in this region, and to collect dust samples ejected   
   close to the nucleus."   
      
   http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_   
   ission_extended   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)