Lutetia as seen from Rosetta

Asteroid Lutetia, seen from Rosetta's OSIRIS imaging system.

The European Rosetta spacecraft has achieved a further milestone on its journey to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. On 10 July 2010 at 17:45 CEST, the orbiter flew past asteroid Lutetia on its second and final pass of the asteroid belt at about 15 kilometres per second – 54,000 kilometres per hour – merely 3162 kilometres from the asteroid. The confirmation was delivered at 18:10 CEST to ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is participating in this unique mission.