Subject: Rosetta's Flyby Of Asteroid 2867 Steins
From: adamod <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:14:39 -0500

ATIG Members-

Per the attached trajectory plots of ESA's Rosetta spacecraft, its first
asteroid encounter is being targeted for September 5, when an approach to
800 km is planned.  Per the Rosetta web page at URL
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/index.html, the targeting process is an
active one.  A period of optical navigation being conducted from August 4 to
September 4 is being used to refine Steins' orbit uncertainty from 100 km to
2 km in the Rosetta B-plane (plane orthogonal to Rosetta's Steins-relative
velocity vector).  Highest resolution in images obtained during the Steins
flyby is expected to approach 10 m.

-Dan Adamo