The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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In january 2003, ESA's Rosetta space probe launched on a nine year voyage to comet Wirtanen. Rosetta is the first probe that landed on a comet. This transmission is the third in a series of five TV Exchanges on Rosetta, and features the tecnological and operational challenges of landing on a comet. The Rosetta lander was the first space probe to make in-situ investigations on the surface of these remnants from the early history of our solar system.
The programme comprises of a 8-minute A- roll with split track and commentray and is complemnted by a B-Roll with clean international sound.
SCRIPT
The lander
00:40
After months of intense final assembly and technical check-outs, the Rosetta spacecraft starts its journey to the launch site Kourou on the other side of the globe inside its nitrogen-filled container.
00:52
At Schiphol Airport, near Amsterdam, the crew of the massive Russian Antonov cargo aircraft knows exactly what it has to do. Every manoeuvre, every manipulation is perfectly studied. It is not the first time they have to transport a satellite. It is also not the first time that a satellite is sent into space to analyse the structure of a comet. But so far, space probes only made fly-bys of a comet's nucleus: Vega, Giotto, Deep space or Contour to name the most prominent.
01:27
ESA's Rosetta mission is much more ambitious, it will fly to comet Wirtanen, orbit around the comet and realize one of the most exciting episodes in the history of space exploration: the first soft landing on a cosmic iceberg. Soft is in fact not the appropriate word to describe the challenge. Sci