After a ten year journey across 6.4 billion kilometers of deep space, ESA’s Rosetta space probe arrived at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 11th November 2014. Wainwright Instruments is proud to have provided RF filters for an on-board microwave spectrometer, built by various partners including the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

Above Photo: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Above photos: Rosetta spacecraft (left) and Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) with Chirp Transform Spectrometer (CTS).

Above Photos: Front and rear view of Chirp Transform Spectrometer (CTS) and analogue tray including Wainwright bandpass filters with Lepra/Con connectors.

Above Photo: Rosetta navigation camera photo of the cometary nucleus during an outburst of the Rosetta comet 67P and MIRO-CTS spectroscopic observation of water vapour at 557 GHz (H216O) and 548 GHz (H218O). The blue circles on the outburst and the comet show the position and size of the MIRO beam. The green arrow pointing to the outburst emission (blue point as indicated in outburst, spectrum left) and absorption (pointing towards the nucleus) lines.  From these spectra information about the speed of the gas molecules in the outburst, the oxygen isotopic ratio in water and the amount of water within the outburst and above the cometary nucleus can be derived (Paul Hartogh, MPS, Göttingen).

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