Naming Philae – An interview with 2004 contest winner Serena Olga Vismara

As the contest to name the landing site on comet 67P/C-G draws to a close, we took another trip into the mission's past, this time chasing the origin of Philae's name. While the name of Rosetta was conceived within the team that defined the mission's science objectives back in the late 1980s, the name of its lander, Philae, has a different origin. In fact, the name Philae is the result of another contest that was held one decade ago, shortly before the launch of Rosetta in 2004. The competition, which was open to young people aged 12 to 25 in the countries contributing to the development of the lander, was won by an Italian student, Serena Olga Vismara from Arluno, near Milan. “I learnt about Rosetta and the contest to find the name for the lander thanks to a newsletter I received from ESA. In fact, as soon as we had an internet connection at home, that same year, I visited the ESA website and subscribed to the newsletter to stay up to date on ESA's activities,” she said. Ten years ago, Serena was a fifteen-year-old high-school student with a keen interest in all things space. Now, this interest has crystallised, as she is about to complete her Master's degree in space engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. For Rosetta's lander, she suggested to adopt a name, Philae, that follows the same Egyptian theme that inspired the mission's name. Philae is an island on the river Nile, in the south of Egypt, where archaeologists found an obelisk that was key to deciphering the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta stone. “I decided to take part in the contest just for fun actually, I did not expect to have much chance of winning since the contest was open to so many young people […]



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