In November 2014, a spacecraft named Rosetta will engage with a comet 790 million kilometres away from the sun. This comet is the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with a diameter of just four km wide, speeding towards the sun at around 135,000km/h and orbiting around it every 6.6 years. This rendezvous will not be an easy task.

Rosetta was launched on March 2004 by an Ariane-5G rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. Rosetta is composed of two main components, orbiter and the lander. The orbiter is the main spacecraft, with dimensions of 2.8m x 2.1m x 2.0m, including two 14m solar panels and a 2.2m diameter communication dish. The lander is a 100kg robot fully equipped with numerous scientific instruments to carry out research on the comet.

The journey itself will take a painful ten years to complete. After blasting off earth, it'll orbit around the planet for two hours. Then the rockets will boost the spacecraft towards Mars. The spacecraft will then become a "cosmic slingshot", grabbing gravity from Mars and gathering speed to return to Earth. Back at Earth, it'll perform the same trick, not just once this time but twice, before it'll have enough energy to zoom across the galaxy towards its final destination. During this trip, the spacecraft will fly past many asteroid belts as well.

If everything goes as planned, the spacecraft should meet the comet around January-May 2014. When it arrives, the spacecraft will orbit the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, observing the actions as the icy comet approaches the Sun and then travelling away from it. Meeting up with this comet is the most difficult stage of the whole mission. When the spacecraft is in sight of the comet, it will decrease its speed to 2m/s over the next 90 days until it's finally in orbit around it. Images will then be taken by the Rosetta's cameras and dispatched to ground control in order to be processed to discover the comet's size, shape and speed.

During its orbit, the spacecraft would be 200 km from the nucleus of the comet. Images from the spacecraft would show information such as the angular velocity, the spin-axis orientation, major landmarks, and the best possible spot for the lander to land.

Eventually, the spacecraft would edge closer into the orbit of the Rosetta at a distance of 25km. Their relative speed would virtually be the same. Once the suitable landing area is spotted the lander would be released from the spacecraft 1km above surface. The touchdown descent speed would be at walking speed: less than one meter per second. Once the lander lands, it'll send back high-resolution pictures of the comet and information gathered on the nature of the comet's ices and organic crust.

The orbiter will continue to orbit around the comet, collecting the information from the lander and observing what's happening to the comet as it moves closer to the Sun. Afterwards, the orbiter will head home. The mission should end in December 2015, when Rosetta would once again pass close to Earth's orbit. Truly an incredible journey.

Rosetta will achieve many things never achieved before.

  • Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to orbit a comet's nucleus.
  • It will be the first spacecraft to fly alongside a comet as it heads towards the inner Solar System.
  • Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to examine from close proximity how a frozen comet is transformed by the warmth of the Sun.
  • Shortly after its arrival at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Rosetta orbiter will despatch a robotic lander for the first controlled touchdown on a comet nucleus.
  • The Rosetta lander's instruments will obtain the first images from a comet's surface and make the first in situ analysis to find out what it is made of.
  • On its way to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Rosetta will pass through the main asteroid belt, with the option to be their first European close encounter with one or more of these primitive objects.
  • Rosetta will be the first spacecraft ever to fly close to Jupiter's orbit using solar cells as its main power source" The ESA (European Space Agency) The mission is named after the Rosetta Stone an ancient tablet which enlightened us to read the language of Ancient Egypt. The leaders of the project, ESA, are hoping to discover answers to questions that shaped our past, such as how the Solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago. Comets are among the most primitive objects in our galaxy, as they were formed at the same time as the planets and were leftovers from their materials.

Although the Rosetta may have booked a front row seat for perhaps one of the greatest shows in space, there is still an excruciating countdown of eight years before we can see the real showdown.