Alice is a compact, general-purpose UV imaging telescope/spectrometer, first developed for the Pluto mission, and now selected to fly aboard the ESA/NASA Rosetta asteroid flyby/comet rendezvous mission.
The Rosetta spacecraft will be launched in 2003 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Alice will obtain 700-2050 A spectra of the Rosetta mission asteroid flyby targets and comet rendezvous target in order to study their surfaces and atmospheres. In particular, at the mission's main target, comet 46P/Wirtanen, Alice will seek to measure the abundances of the major parent molecules, noble gases, key ions, and various minor species; in addition, Alice will study the comet's far-UV surface reflectance and the UV photometric properties of dust grains in the coma.
Key personnel
Rosetta spacecraft photos For more information about the ALICE instrument, see:
For more information about Comet 46P/Wirtanen, see:
DoSS
SwRI
Last modified: November 18, 1999