The U.S. Rosetta project: NASA's contribution to the International Rosetta Mission

The International Rosetta Mission was successfully launched on March 2, 2004. NASA's contribution to this mission consists of the following three hardware experiments: Alice (an ultraviolet spectrometer), the ion and electron sensor (IES - a plasma instrument), and the microwave instrument for the Rosetta orbiter (MIRO), as well as other components. Collectively these elements are known as the U.S. Rosetta project. In this paper, we present an overview of the U.S. Rosetta project. We present and summarize the successful launch and early operations phases of the U.S. Rosetta project. Finally, an unplanned science target appeared in the form of Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR). Comet Linear was successfully observed by the U.S. Rosetta project on two occasions, April 30 and May 17, 2004, by both Alice and MIRO.