14 Dec 1998

The review came at the end of several weeks of very intensive discussion focused around a number of severe constraints which the mission team will have to overcome. They include:

• the spacecraft's thermal design - how Rosetta will cope with high temperatures close to the Sun and much lower temperatures beyond the asteroid belt
• the available mass for the spacecraft and its scientific payload, based on the lifting capacity of the Ariane-5 rocket
• providing sufficient electrical power supply from the spacecraft's solar panels in the dark depths of the Solar System
• the very challenging construction, assembly and test schedule, for the January 2003 launch date.