ROSETTA AOCS BEHAVIOUR IN THE FIRST YEARS OF OPERATIONS

The ROSETTA mission is a cornerstone of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, launched on March 2004 for a 10-year journey towards a rendezvous with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Ferri, 2006). The EADS Astrium Satellites designed ROSETTA Attitude and Orbit Control System exhibits a combination of complex AOCS modes. Another characteristic of the ROSETTA AOCS concept is the design and operations commonality of many functions with two other ESA deep space missions, MARS EXPRESS and VENUS EXPRESS (Régnier, et al, 1999). This paper provides an overview of the results collected during the commissioning activities conducted during the first years of operations from AOCS point of view.