Probe completes Mars 'swing-by'

The Rosetta probe has swooped around the back of Mars, completing a key manoeuvre in its ten year mission to meet a distant comet.

The European Space Agency probe performed its 'swing-by' of the red planet early on Sunday, performing the second of four so-called 'gravitational assisted manoeuvres' that the craft will complete before reaching its ambitious target in 2014.

The three tonne probe successfully orbited Mars close to the controllers' planned trajectory and at one point came within just 155 miles of the planet's surface.

Rosetta will ultimately catch and follow the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in one of the most ambitious projects to date for the European space project.

The spacecraft, named after the stone which unlocked the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphics, builds on the success of earlier European comet chasers like Giotto.

In order to reach the distant comet, the £600 million euro probe must first pick up speed and achieve the right trajectory, accelerated and assisted by the four swing-bys which use the gravitational pull of planets as a propellant.

The first such manoeuvre was performed around Earth in 2005, just over a year after the probe was launched from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket.

After Sunday's Mars manoeuvre, two further trips around Earth, planned for 2007 and 2009, will serve to accelerate the probe until it reaches its final destination.

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