NASA Statement on Successful Rosetta Comet Landing

Statement from John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, about the successful comet landing by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft.



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Here comes the lander!

Shortly before Philae’s touchdown on Comet 67P/C-G, the lander’s down-looking descent camera, ROLIS, imaged the surface of the comet: The image shows was acquired during descent on 12 November 2014 at 14:38:41 UT, from a distance of approximately 3 km from the surface. The landing site is imaged with a resolution of about 3m per pixel. The ROLIS instrument is a down-looking imager that acquires images during the descent and doubles as a multispectral close-up camera after the landing. The aim of the ROLIS experiment is to study the texture and microstructure of the comet's surface. In the upper right corner a segment of the Philae landing gear is visible. *** ROLIS (ROsetta Lander Imaging System) is a descent and close-up camera on the Philae Lander. It has been developed by the DLR Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin.



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Touchdown! Rosetta’s Philae probe lands on comet

ESA’s Rosetta mission has soft-landed its Philae probe on a comet, the first time in history that such an extraordinary feat has been achieved. After a tense wait during the seven-hour descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the signal confirming the successful touchdown arrived on Earth at 16:03 GMT (17:03 CET). The confirmation was relayed via the Rosetta orbiter to Earth and picked up simultaneously by ESA’s ground station in Malargüe, Argentina and NASA’s station in Madrid, Spain. The signal was immediately confirmed at ESA’s Space Operations Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt, and DLR’s Lander Control Centre in Cologne, both in Germany. Read the full story here.



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Touchdown confirmed for Philae at 17:03 CET

Rosetta's lander Philae has landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Keep following the live broadcast from ESOC at http://ift.tt/1uRImQv



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Farewell, Rosetta!

Shortly after parting from Rosetta, the lander Philae took a shot of its mothership: The image was taken with the lander’s CIVA-P imaging system and captures one of Rosetta's 14 metre-long solar arrays. It was stored onboard the lander until the radio link was established with Rosetta around two hours after separation, and then relayed to Earth. The lander separated from the orbiter at 09:03 GMT/10:03 CET and is expected to touch down on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko seven hours later. Confirmation of a successful touchdown is expected in a one-hour window centred on 16:02 GMT / 17:02 CET. Follow the landing event live: esa.int/rosetta



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Live broadcast from ESOC starting at 15:00 CET

Starting back soon. Stay tuned! http://ift.tt/1uRImQv



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Competition winners at ESOC

While we wait for the first science data to come back from Philae, let's take a look at five special guests who are sitting in the audience here at ESOC today: the winners of three competitions that were launched during the past year of Rosetta to mark some of the mission's milestones. One of the videos winning the #WakeUpRosetta competition early this year was produced by the pupils of the Ellinogermaniki Agogi Primary School in Athens, Greece. The eleven-year old Dimitris Grillis is here representing his school, curious to witness the first landing on a comet and to tell all about it to his friends and teachers once back in Greece; physics teacher Koskos Spyros also came along. The other winning video is by eighteen-year old Józef Dobrowolski from Ostrolzka, Poland, who joined the competition combining his two passions: astronomy and film-making. Mountaineering and a message in a bottle were the themes of the two winning photos of the #AreWeThereYet photo competition, launched just before Rosetta arrived at the comet last summer. Emanuele Andreola, an engineering student from Italy, shot his winning picture on top of a 4000-metre-high peak in the Alps while thinking of the size of Comet 67P/C-G, while Elisabetta Bonora, a space enthusiast and image-processing aficionada also from Italy, launched a bottle containing a Rosetta model and a mysterious message into the Mediterranean sea. In the last of the three competitions, which was launched last month, participants proposed names for the landing site on the comet. The winning name was Agilkia, an island on the Nile River in the south of Egypt, and the overall winner is Alexandre Brouste, a lecturer in mathematics from France who enjoys stargazing and all things space.



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SIGNALS ACQUIRED FROM PHILAE 12:07 CET

Mission control have regained contact with Rosetta as expected after separation, and with Philae that is now descending onto the surface of Comet 67P/C-G.



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Go ROSETTA!

The DSN is honored to be a part of this amazing adventure!



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Rosetta and Philae Go for separation

Following a night of critical Go/NoGo decisions, Rosetta and Philae are cleared for separation, despite a problem onboard the lander. During checks on the lander’s health, it was discovered that the active descent system, which provides a thrust upwards to avoid rebound at the moment of touchdown, cannot be activated. At touchdown, landing gear will absorb the forces of the landing while ice screws in each of the probe’s feet and a harpoon system will lock Philae to the surface. At the same time, a the thruster on top of the lander is supposed to push it down to counteract the impulse of the harpoon imparted in the opposite direction. “The cold gas thruster on top of the lander does not appear to be working so we will have to rely fully on the harpoons at touchdown,”says Stephan Ulamec, Philae Lander Manager at the DLR German Aerospace Center. “We’ll need some luck not to land on a boulder or a steep slope.” “There were various problems with the preparation activities overnight but we have decided to ‘go’. Rosetta is lined up for separation,” says Paolo Ferri, ESA’s head of mission operations. Thus despite the potential problem concerning the moment of touchdown, separation will proceed on the planned timeline. Separation will occur in space at 08:35 GMT / 09:35 CET, but it will take the radio signals from the transmitter on Rosetta 28 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth and be transferred to the Rosetta Mission Control Centre at ESA’s Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. That means we must wait until about 09:03 GMT / 10:03 CET for confirmation the separation has happened correctly. The Go/No-Go decisions leading up to this milestone began last night at 19:00 GMT / 20:00 CET, with the first confirming that Rosetta is in […]



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NASA’s Canberra station now tracking Rosetta

The 34m antenna at NASA's deep space complex near Canberra, Australia, is now receiving signals from Rosetta, 511 million km from Earth. Thank you very much NASA and JPL for excellent support! Now! #DSS34 tracking @ESA_Rosetta. Good signal coming through. Good luck @Philae2014 #CometLanding http://ift.tt/1xw4e3k — CanberraDSN (@CanberraDSN) November 12, 2014



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