What makes the Rosetta mission so special?
Rosetta will be undertaking several ‘firsts’ in space exploration. It will be the first mission to orbit and land on a comet. That makes Rosetta one of the most complex and ambitious missions ever undertaken. Scientists had to plan in advance a ten-year trip through the Solar System. Approaching, orbiting, and landing on a comet require delicate and spectacular manoeuvres. We know very little about its actual surface properties, so we will only be able to choose a safe landing scenario when we get there. Rosetta is very special because of the unique science it will perform. No other previous mission has had the potential to look back to the infancy of our Solar System and investigate the role that comets may have played in the beginnings of life on Earth. Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to witness, at close proximity, how a comet changes as it approaches the increasing intensity of the Sun’s radiation. Rosetta’s lander will obtain the first images from a comet’s surface and make t
