Testing and Integration
During the design of Ptolemy, testing had to be carried out to ensure not only that the instrument functioned correctly, but also to study its interaction with the other components that would eventually be present on the Rosetta Lander.
For example, in order not to “bounce” off the comet during landing, the lander must tether itself to the comet using an explosive-driven harpoon. The video below illustrates a test firing of the harpoon system. The Ptolemy team worked together with the harpoon team from Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, to ensure that the gases released by firing the harpoon would not contaminate the comet sample.
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It's one thing making sure that an instrument works in a laboratory, but this doesn't guarantee that the same instrument will work in the very harsh conditions of space. In order to test this, the entire Rosetta spacecraft was tested within a huge thermal vacuum chamber, where pressure, temperature and light intensity can be accurately controlled to simulate the environments to which the spacecraft will be exposed in space.
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