WIREDGOV

More than a decade after its launch, the historic ESA Rosetta Mission has come to an end recently with a controlled descent to the surface of Comet 67P.

The European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft arrived at Comet 67P on 6 August 2014, following a 10-year journey through our Solar System. The Philae Lander, containing a mini-laboratory built by a team at Oxfordshire’s STFC RAL Space, was sent down to the surface on 12 November 2014, marking the first ever landing on a comet.

As well as contributing to the mission by designing and building the Ptolemy mini-research laboratory, that went down on to the comet as part of Philae, STFC’s RAL Space facility also designed the thermal insulation for the GIADA and VIRTIS instruments as well as for the Philae lander itself. Designed by a team of space scientists and engineers from STFC RAL Space and the Open University, Ptolemy 'sniffed' to detect the isotopic make-up of the comet and collected data to explore the relationship between water ice on comets and the Earth’s oceans.

Dr Chris Mutlow, Director of STFC RAL Space, said, “It’s incredible to think that after a ten year journey, travelling over six billion miles, and two years of observations of the comet the Rosetta mission is coming to an end. The team from RAL space are incredibly proud that Ptolemy, an evolved gas analyser instrument the size of a shoebox and weighing 4.5 kg  that they built, got to land on the comet.”

You can learn more about the Rosetta mission here: http://rosetta.esa.int/

RAL Space, based at STFC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, carries out an exciting range of world-class space research and technology development. It has had significant involvement in over 200 space missions and is at the forefront of UK Space Research. http://www.ralspace.stfc.ac.uk/RALSpace/