Rosetta

Mission Profile

Rosetta was an ESA mission launched on 2 March 2004 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket to conduct the first orbital study of a cometary nucleus, arriving at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August 2014 after a 10-year, 6.4 billion km journey including four gravity assists. The spacecraft orbited 67P for over two years, mapping its surface, measuring its outgassing rates, and studying how activity evolved as the comet approached and receded from the Sun, while deploying the Philae lander for the first cometary surface touchdown in history. Rosetta discovered that 67P's water has a different isotopic ratio than Earth's oceans, challenging the hypothesis that comets delivered Earth's water, and detected glycine and phosphorus — key ingredients for life — in the comet's coma. The mission ended on 30 September 2016 when Rosetta was commanded to impact the comet's surface.