Rosetta Spacecraft Wakes Up After 31 Months and On Track to Chase Comets

It's been 31 months since the ESA has heard from its distant spacecraft, Rosetta. Now, scientists have finally gotten a signal from the spacecraft that's chasing down a comet. The latest signal shows that the Rosetta space mission is on track and should shed some light on comets.

Rosetta is currently speeding after Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will actually be the first space mission to rendezvous with a comet and also the first to attempt a landing on the comet's surface. It's also the first to follow a comet as it swings around the sun.

The mission was first launched in 2004. Since then, Rosetta has made three flybys of Earth and one of Mars in order to help it on its course to its rendezvous with the comet. Operating on solar energy alone, Rosetta was actually placed in deep space hibernation in 2011 as it cruised to a distance nearly 800 million km from the sun beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Now, though, the spacecraft has become active again as its orbit has brought it to within 673 km of the sun.

In fact, the spacecraft was programmed to "wake up" and then send a signal to Earth. This allowed mission operators to know that the spacecraft had survived the most distant part of its journey.

"We have our comet-chaser back," said Alvaro Gimenez, ESA's Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, in a news release. "With Rosetta, we will take comet exploration to a new level. This incredible mission continues our history of 'firsts' at comets, building on the technological and scientific achievements of our first deep space mission Giotto, which returned the first close-up images of a comet nucleus as it flew past Halley in 1986."

While researchers are aware that comets are made up of water and minerals, there are still many fundamental questions about them. It's possible that comets helped "seed" the Earth with water and may have even contributed to the ingredients for life. This particular mission could help answer some of these questions about comets.

"All other comet missions have been flybys, capturing fleeting moments in the life of these icy treasure chests," said Matt Taylor, ESA's Rosetta project scientist, in a news release. "With Rosetta, we will track the evolution of a comet on a daily basis and for over a year, giving us a unique insight into a comet's behavior and ultimately helping us to decipher their role in the formation of the solar system."