On 6 August 2014, the spacecraft reached the comet and performed a series of manoeuvres to eventually orbit the comet at distances of 30 to 10 kilometres (19 to 6 mi).On 12 November, its lander module Philae performed the first successful landing on a comet, though its battery power ran out two days later. Communications with Philae were briefly restored in June and July 2015, but due to diminishing solar power, Rosetta's communications module with the lander was turned off on 27 July 2016.[16] On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by hard-landing on the comet in its Ma'at region.
The probe was named after the Rosetta Stone, a stele of Egyptian origin featuring a decree in three scripts. The lander was named after the Philae obelisk, which bears a bilingual Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription.
0 Comments