rosetta has now arrived and is in the first of those triangular steps to reach the orbital stage: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/tech/2014/08/06/rosetta-probe-makes-rendezvous-with-comet.html

two more images from around 285 km (~180 miles) distance made on the 3rd with a resolution of 5.3m (~17'5") per pixel:





and a close-up from earlier today from a distance of 130 km (~80 miles) with a resolution of 2.4m (~8 feet) per pixel:

Humans are incredible when they apply their intellect and accumulated knowledge into positive activities. This is a great achievement!

from http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Frequently_asked_questions (take note of the last line i quote):



Who are the Rosetta mission contractors?
Rosetta’s industrial team involves more than 50 contractors from 14 European countries and the United States. The prime spacecraft contractor – the company leading the entire industrial team – is Astrium Germany. Major subcontractors are Astrium UK (spacecraft platform), Astrium France (spacecraft avionics) and Alenia Spazio (assembly, integration and verification).
Who built Rosetta’s instrument and lander package?
The orbiter's scientific payload was provided by scientific consortia from institutes across Europe and the United States.
The lander is provided by a European consortium under the leadership of the German Aerospace Research Institute (DLR). Other members of the consortium are ESA and institutes from Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
...
How many people are involved in the Rosetta programme, and how many jobs has it created?
About 2,000 people from industry, ESA and scientific institutions were involved in Rosetta's development. It is difficult to establish exactly how many new jobs were created, but Rosetta has certainly helped contribute to the development of the space sector both from the industrial and the scientific point of view.
Who will obtain data from Rosetta, and how will it be distributed?
Rosetta's Science Ground Segment will be responsible for collecting and distributing the scientific data. The unit will be based at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, and at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain. It will be responsible for the collection of the scientific data received from the spacecraft and its distribution to the principal investigators.
The principal investigators head up the teams building the Rosetta instruments and will have the exclusive right to work with the data for six months. After this period, the data will be stored in ESA’s Planetary Science Archive and made freely available to the world's scientific community.

It's beautiful. I was waiting for the close ups for so long
now we wait until November or so, when the action begins.

with all this satelite, maybe cellphone will be free ?

there will be action all along but yes, will the lander work?

for everyone who wants to know where rosetta is atm, here is a website with live update and a schematic of the flight path:

http://www.livecometdata.com/comets/67p-churyumov-gerasimenko/

Awesome link ^^

pity you cannot roll it back to the time rosetta was launched otherwise it is very nice
one newer picture from a little closer (at 81km distance) and from a position which would be from the top of the top picture in post#11:

if you have 8 1/2 minutes to spare, watch the video -> http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2014/08/ESA_Euronews_Comet_Hunters_Rosetta_s_race_to_map_67P

while it does not show anything exciting new, it tells you where the equator of the comet is (and thereby the axis of rotation) and also why they use such a convoluted approach maneuver
but you can see some of the people in charge of (parts of) the mission

This post was edited by brmv on Aug 11 2014 07:12pm