ARTICLE

Four billion miles of monitoring

09 March 2015

When the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta space probe arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko it had been travelling for ten years and had travelled 4 billion miles on just one tank of fuel.

Throughout the journey, Kistler piezoresistive pressure sensors monitored the fuel consumption continuously for the whole ten years to ensure that Rosetta arrived at its destination with enough fuel to make the final corrections to put the probe into orbit.

The key selection criteria for the sensors included their proven longevity and total reliability despite high levels of vibration at lift-off and years of zero gravity conditions.


 
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