For Rosetta, a Landing and an Ending on a Comet

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Rosetta is a spacecraft on a 10-year mission to catch a comet and land a probe on it. Launched in 2004, the spacecraft arrived at its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, on Aug. 6, 2014. The lander, named Philae, made contact on Nov. 12, 2014.

Rosetta is the first spacecraft to accompany a comet as it enters the inner solar system. After meeting up with the comet, it began a two-year study of the comet’s nucleus and environment, observing how a frozen comet changes as it approaches the heat of the sun.

Key Takeaways:

When the spacecraft makes a gentle belly flop onto the comet on Friday, it will bring to an end to the most ambitious mission ever for the European Space Agency.
Instead, they decided to undertake some truly close-up observations as Rosetta began falling into the comet.
Then everyone working on the mission will have some time to relax. “I’m going to put my feet up,” Dr. Taylor said. “We have free time, as it were.”

“Shutting off the transmitter avoids any possibility of Rosetta’s interfering with the deep space communications of other spacecraft.”

Read the full article here: For Rosetta, a Landing and an Ending on a Comet

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