Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Rosetta made history after successful Comet landing

It was a great day when the Rosetta made a history by landing on the surface of a comet after ten years of hard work.  The Lander Philae made a history on 12 November when it touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.     
  
Philae confirmed the first-ever landing, the landing is planned for about 09:03 GMT (10:03 CET) but it confirmed about seven hours later at 16:02 GMT (17:02 CET).  

Lander project manager Stephan Ulamec said: "Maybe we didn't just land once, we landed twice."  

The scientist cheered and hugged each other at the European Space Agency (ESA) mission control in Darmstadt, Germany after successful comet landing. The signals came through from more than 300 million miles away at 11:30 am Eastern. 

Director general Jean-Jacques Dordain described it as "a great great day, not only for ESA, but... I think for the world".   

When the landing was confirmed, the probe tweeted: "Touchdown! My new address: 67P!" Later, it tweeted again: "I'm on the surface but my harpoons did not fire." 

"No one has ever gotten data like Rosetta has gotten. No one has ever been able to land on a comet the way Philae just did."  

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