Rosetta to sleep through loneliest leg of comet mission

On 8 June, mission controllers will have the first opportunity to switch ESA's Rosetta comet-hunter into deep-space hibernation for 31 months. During this loneliest leg of its decade-long mission, Rosetta will loop ever closer toward comet 67-P, soaring to almost 1000 million km from Earth.

Marking one of the most dramatic and distant stages of the probe's 10-year journey to rendezvous with Comet 67-P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ground controllers at ESOC, ESA's European Space Operations Centre, p [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art25924/rosetta-to-sleep-through-loneliest-leg-of-comet-mission.html