Rosetta inspires Vangelis album

Legendary composer and pioneer of electronic music Vangelis has produced a brand new album, ‘Rosetta’, inspired by ESA’s Rosetta mission.

The release of the album by Decca Records on 23 September will coincide with the culmination of Rosetta’s 12-year mission to orbit and land its Philae probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta is set to complete its journey in a controlled descent to the surface of the comet on 30 September.

The story of this mission fuelled Vangelis’ long-held passion for space and inspired him to create his first new studio album in 18 years.

Vangelis’ music is often linked to themes of science, history and exploration. Alongside his Academy award-winning score for ‘Chariots of Fire’, he has written for films including ‘Bladerunner’, ‘Antarctica’, ‘1492: Conquest of Paradise’, ‘The Bounty’ and ‘Alexander’.

“Mythology, science and space exploration are subjects that have fascinated me since my early childhood. And they were always connected somehow with the music I write,” said Vangelis.
ESA’s connection with Vangelis goes back several years to when ESA astronaut André Kuipers was on the International Space Station. André is a big fan and he had a lot of Vangelis’ music with him in space.

After sharing stories and experiences with André via video call from the ISS, Vangelis was inspired to write some music for ESA to mark the landing of Philae on the comet in 2014.

To Vangelis, music is a sacred, basic force of the Universe, its purpose to elevate, inspire and to heal humankind. Never has this been more obvious than on ‘Rosetta’, an album that perfectly blends his fascination with the Universe and his ability to compose stirring music.

“With music, you can enhance emotions and create memories: I believe that what Vangelis wanted to do was share a lasting memory of our Rosetta mission through his music,” says Carl Walker, from ESA’s communication department.

Vangelis has dedicated this new album to everyone who made the ESA’s ongoing Rosetta mission possible, in particular extending the track called ‘Rosetta’s Waltz’ as an expression of his appreciation to the mission team.

“Rosetta has been an amazing journey for everybody involved, both scientifically and technically, but it has also connected emotionally with so many people around the world,” says ESA’s Prof Mark McCaughrean, senior science advisor in the Directorate of Science.

“So you can imagine how proud we were when one of the world’s great composers Vangelis made some music for us at the time of landing, and how excited we are that he’s put together a whole album of original music about this astonishing adventure.”

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

The dreaded Monday morning alarm clock takes on an extra dimension tomorrow when it will rouse a slumbering spacecraft that is hurtling back towards our Sun from the darkest reaches of the solar system. 

ESA’s Rosetta probe is chasing comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko at intergalactic speeds and later this year will close in for a high speed rendezvous with the comet before ejecting a lander called Philae towards its surface.

Since its launch in 2004, Rosetta has made three flybys of Earth and one of Mars to build up enough speed and get on a trajectory towards the comet. It has also encountered asteroids Steins and Lutetia along the way.

Operating on solar energy alone, the spacecraft was placed into a deep space hibernation in mid-2011 as it cruised far from the Sun and out towards the orbit of Jupiter. 

To prepare for its long sleep, Rosetta was oriented so that its solar arrays faced the Sun and put into a once per minute spin for stability. The only devices left running were its computer and several heaters.

Thirty-one months later, Rosetta’s orbit has brought it back to within ‘only’ 673 million km of the Sun where there is finally just enough solar energy to power the spacecraft fully again. It is time to wake up.

Tomorrow morning Rosetta’s computer is programmed to carry out a sequence of events to re-establish contact with Earth, starting with an ‘alarm clock’ at 10:00 GMT. Immediately afterwards, the spacecraft’s star trackers will begin to warm up, taking around six hours.

Then its thrusters will fire to stop the slow rotation and a slight adjustment will be made to Rosetta’s orientation to ensure that the solar arrays are still facing directly towards the Sun, before the star trackers are switched on to determine the spacecraft’s attitude.

Once Rosetta has regained its bearings the spacecraft will turn directly towards Earth, switch on its transmitter and point its high-gain antenna to send a signal to announce that it is awake.

Because of Rosetta’s vast distance – just over 807 million km from Earth – it will take 45 minutes for that signal to reach ground stations so the first opportunity for receiving a signal on Earth is expected between 17:30 and 18:30 GMT.

Once mission controllers have verified Rosetta’s health, each of its scientific instruments will be switched back on and checked, an effort that will take several months as the spacecraft continues to eat up the remaining 9 million km separating it from the comet.

During May the spacecraft must pull off a tricky braking manoeuvre to slow its approach relative to the speed comet to walking speed - and if that goes to plan it will cruise alongside in August.

Once alongside the 4 km wide comet, Rosetta will steer itself into an orbit that takes it within 20 km of the surface. From here, its cameras will map the surface and search for a landing spot for Philae.

With gravity too weak to hold it on the surface, the sophisticated box of electronics and sensors attached to spindly legs will cling to its interplanetary roller coaster with an explosive metal harpoon.

Comets like 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko probably formed some 4.6 billion years ago and are considered to be the primitive building blocks of the Solar System that may have helped ‘seed’ Earth with water.

In a spectacular series of firsts for space exploration, Rosetta will become the first space mission to rendezvous with a comet, the first to attempt a landing, and the first to follow a comet as it swings close to the Sun.

Many fundamental questions about these enigmatic and ancient objects of the solar system remain - but first there is that all important wake-up call.

A note on the title of this report - ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ was a two-million-selling  pop song from the early 1980s by the English pop duo Wham! Written and produced by George Michael, it became the group’s first number one hit in both America and the UK.