The Rosetta mission: a retrospective on 17 months accompanying a comet...and more to come!

• Nicolas Altobelli (ESA)

Room: H331 Abstract: The Rosetta Mission is the third cornerstone mission of the ESA programme Horizon 2000. The aim of the mission is to map the comet 67-P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by remote sensing, to examine its environment insitu and its evolution in the inner solar system. The lander Philae is the first device to land on a comet and perform in-situ science on the surface. Launched in March 2004 and after a number of gravity assists and various asteroid fly –bys, the spacecraft entered deep space hibernation in June 2011. Nearly 10 years after launch on 20th January 2014 at 10:00 UTC the spacecraft woke up from hibernation, and subsequently successfully entered into orbit around the comet and deployed Philae to the surface. In August last year, the comet passed its closest point to the Sun, with Rosetta observing the spectacular phenomena at the maximum of cometary activity. This talk will summarise the mission achievements so far and what to expect next.