Rosetta (spacecraft)

Rosetta was a space probe built by the European Space Agency that launched on 2 March 2004. Along with Philae, its lander module, Rosetta performed a detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P).^[9][10] During its journey to the comet, the spacecraft performed flybys of Earth, Mars, and the asteroids 21 Lutetia and 2867 Šteins.^[11][12][13] It was launched as the third cornerstone mission of the ESA's Horizon 2000 programme, after SOHO / Cluster and XMM-Newton.^[14] The total cost of the mission was about €1.3 billion (US$1.8 billion).^[15]

On 6 August 2014, the spacecraft reached the comet and performed a series of manoeuvers to eventually orbit the comet at distances of 30 to 10 kilometres (19 to 6 mi).^[16] On 12 November, its lander module Philae performed the first successful landing on a comet,^[17] though its battery power ran out two days later.^[18] 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.^[19] On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by hard-landing on the comet in its Ma'at region.^[20][21]