Comet relay

Seventy-four weeks ago, on 12 November 2014, ESA’s Rosetta mission soft-landed its Philae probe on a comet – the first time that such an extraordinary feat had been achieved.

This image shows the 35 m-diameter deep-space tracking station at Malargüe, Argentina, during Philae’s touchdown that day. At the time of this photo, the station was receiving data from the lander, relayed via the Rosetta comet orbiter, and was in turn relaying the information to the mission control team at ESA’s control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

More information

Estrack – ESA's ground station network