NASA, ESA Discuss Rosetta Comet Mission in Media Teleconference

News provided by

Jan 23, 2014, 04:50 ET

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a media teleconference at noon EST Friday, Jan. 24, to discuss the road ahead for the three U.S. science instruments, as well as other NASA support, that are part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta mission.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

Having been reactivated Monday after a record 957 days in hibernation, the spacecraft will be the first to orbit a comet and land a probe on its nucleus.

The Rosetta mission could help inform NASA's asteroid initiative, which will be the first mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid for astronauts to explore.

The teleconference participants are:

James Green, director of planetary science, NASA Headquarters, Washington
Mark McCaughrean, ESA senior scientific advisor, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Matthew Taylor, ESA Rosetta project scientist, Noordwijk
Claudia Alexander, U.S. Rosetta project scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
Art Chmielewski, U.S. Rosetta project manager, JPL

To participate by phone, reporters must send an email providing name, media affiliation and telephone number to Dwayne Brown at [email protected] or call Brown at 202-358-1726 by 11:45 a.m. EST Friday.

The teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

Related images will be available at the start of the teleconference at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1jqyKG7

For more information about Rosetta, visit:

http://www.esa.int/rosetta

and

http://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov

SOURCE NASA