The first spacecraft to orbit and land on a comet

Space · Published 18 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: For years, comets were distant mysteries. The Rosetta mission changed that, executing a decade-long journey to perform the first-ever soft landing on a comet's surface. It wasn't just a flyby; it was a deliberate, multi-year orbital study of a celestial body that holds secrets to our solar system's origins.

A key part of the Horizon 2000 programme by the ESA, Rosetta departed from the Guiana Space Centre on 2 March 2004. Its primary objective was the study of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The journey was an endurance test, lasting 10 years before the spacecraft reached its target. During its transit, the craft visited Earth, Mars, and two asteroids: 21 Lutetia in 2010 and 2867 Steins in 2008. To conserve energy, the spacecraft entered a deep-space hibernation mode in June 2011, only 'waking up' on 20 January 2014 to prepare for its final approach.

The mission achieved two historic firsts. The first spacecraft to achieve a comet orbit was Rosetta in August 2014, staying between 10 and 30 kilometres away. On 12 November 2014, it deployed its lander, Philae, which successfully performed the first soft landing on a comet nucleus. While Philae's battery power ran out just two days later, the mission continued to provide data. The orbiter eventually accompanied the comet through its perihelion on 13 August 2015, providing a detailed study of the comet's environment for over two years.

The project finished on 30 September 2016 when it hit the comet's Ma'at region in a controlled manner. Beyond its scientific instruments, the probe carried a symbolic weight: a micro-etched nickel prototype of the Rosetta disc, inscribed with 6,500 pages of language translations. This mirrored the naming of the spacecraft after the Rosetta Stone, which was instrumental in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. By studying 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, scientists aimed to unlock the same kind of foundational secrets for our early Solar System.

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