Lessons learned from the ROSETTA/PHILAE Mission to a comet

Abstract

The International Rosetta Mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 year journey to rendezvous with comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, reached on 6th August 2014. In November 2014 Rosetta delivered the lander Philae to perform the first soft landing ever on the surface of a comet. After this critical operation Rosetta continued to orbit the comet’s nucleus throughout its orbit around the Sun, passing the perihelion in August 2015, until 30 September 2016, when the mission was terminated by softly depositing the Rosetta spacecraft itself onto the surface. The Rosetta mission was conceived in the mid 80ies of last century, when no spacecraft had yet visited a comet and the scientific knowledge and understanding of a comet nucleus was purely theoretical. The challenges the mission had to face and overcome during the design, testing and operational phases were enormous, among which many “firsts” in the history of spaceflight. Three generations of scientists and engineers have participated in this historical endeavor and share now a huge amount of experience and knowledge, acquired over the entire mission’s lifetime. Among the enormous amount of lessons learned from this mission, this presentation covers some of the main ones in the three key elements: the Rosetta spacecraft design and operations, the Philae lander and the scientific aspects of the overall mission. In particular those lessons are discussed which are considered of the highest and immediate relevance to any future mission to a comet or other small bodies in the solar system