European Space Agency Project

[AndroTech]

This is an amazing presentation of project, from the European Space Agency, about the landing of Rosetta Lander on the comet, using Lego bricks for comet, and Lego Mindstorms for Lander presentation. The Lander was sent to the comet in 2004, and will arrive there in 2014.

Enjoy.

Edited September 30, 2010 by DLuders
Provided direct YouTube picture

[DLuders]

Nice find! My cousin is an Astronomer who specializes in "Minor Planets" and asteroids. This video is a great way of involving young people into the ESA project. Maybe some future scientists of the world will be watching this!

The text of the YouTube video above says "Comets are primeval leftovers from the origins of the Solar System. To fully understand these ancient objects and perhaps the origins of life on Earth, ESA's Rosetta mission will rendezvous with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. In November of that year, Rosetta's Philae lander will touchdown on the comet and thoroughly investigate its composition."

There's also a link

entitled "ESA Space Scientist Detlef Koschny demonstrates the prototype LEGO® Philae lander": "Built using LEGO Mindstorms, the Philae lander model can be controlled using a home computer. It can rotate and move the drill up and down to simulate the behaviour of the real lander. As part of ESA's Rosetta space mission, Philae will land on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014 to study its composition":

Here's a

shoing "ESA Space Scientist Detlef Koschny explains why he originally built Rosetta in LEGO®" -- "Space missions are complicated pieces of orbital choreography. When planning a mission, spacecraft engineers must calculate how to point the solar panels towards the Sun, the main antenna towards Earth and the instruments towards the target. ESA Space Scientist Detlef Koschny build a LEGO model of Rosetta mission in order to visualise these precise orientations."

Edited September 30, 2010 by DLuders

[Flare]

Awesome videos!

[Jetro]

Just saw the blog post on The NXT Step - way to go LEGO!!

Edited October 2, 2010 by DLuders
Imbedded link to "The NXT Step" story.

[DLuders]

Full article from the European Space Agency (ESA): http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Operations/SEMN40NO7EG_2.html .