Lika Electronic, heading for space
Innovative solutions that make a difference to the world always come from ambitious challenges and creative synergies. Communication and interaction between advanced research and practical engineering experience are at the heart of any effort at developing intelligent products and cutting edge systems. This is the reason why, s ince its inception in 1982, Lika Electronic has been working in close cooperation with universities and research centres as well as key suppliers and customers from all over the world in order to build sophisticated, tailor-made motion control solutions and open up new opportunities. One of the major projects in recent years has brought about great technological advances and significant impacts on work and daily practice, providing huge benefits to the company. Relying on its high-tech skills and ingenuity as well as the in-depth expertise, Lika Electronic decided to take up the challenge together with leading technology partners to build a state-of-the-art, ultra-reliable motion control encoder in an unprecedented space endeavour. At present I38 SPACE optical encoder is heading for outer space and peering into farflung galaxies.
ROSETTA pioneering spacecraft: the final step Rosetta is the ESA European Space Agency's scientific project involving a consortium of more than 50 contractors (private companies, institutes and universities) in Europe and the United States. It is unique across all the space projects because it is the first mission planned to orbit and land on a comet. It will come to an end during the year 2016. Rosetta probe (Figure 1) was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket on 2 nd March, 2004, from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on a journey of more than 10 years to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Figure 2. It entered the orbit around the comet's nucleus in first days of August 2014 after a series of gravity assist manoeuvres to gain enough orbital energy, with three swing- Figure 1 - Rosetta spacecraft (artist's rendering) Image courtesy: ESA Š J. Huart bys at Earth (March 2005, November 2007 and November 2009) and one at Mars (February 2007). En route to the comet, the star rover flew by the asteroids Steins (September 2008) and 21 Lutetia (July 2010). Rosetta spacecraft carries eleven science instruments to probe the comet's nucleus and map its surface in fine details. It also attempted to deploy a package of instruments (the Philae Lander, Figure 3) to the surface of the comet on November 12, 2014. Not everything has been fine, Figure 2 - The duck-shaped comet 67P by after few bounces Philae landed in a wrong position under some rocks. It lost Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on 3 August 2014. Credit: ESA / Rosetta / MPS for power and lay dormant in the OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / dark, and there is little hope that INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA it will become operational again. Some instruments did their duty anyway and the good job will allow to study some of the most primitive, unprocessed material in the Solar System. Thus the mission will provide clues to the physical and chemical processes at work during the formation of planets, beginning 4.6 billion years ago, and the prebiotic organic molecules that seem to be abundant on the icy comet's surface. The final step will be during the year 2016. The Rosetta probe may be sent Figure 3 - Touchdown! After a tense wait during the seven-hour descent to the surface of Comet crashing into the distant comet it has been orbiting at the end of its 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the signal confirming lifetime next September. But the spacecraft is expected to have a far softer the successful touchdown arrived on Earth on landing than its ill-fated Philae lander, which bounced uncontrollably across Wednesday November 12th at 16:03 GMT (17:03 the surface of the duck-shaped comet 67P. Instead it will approach the CET). The figure is an artist's concept.