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Rosetta

	Article contents

·	Lander Design

	About Rosetta

	Rosetta at a glance

	Europe's comet chaser

	Why 'Rosetta'?

	Life and survival in deep space

	The cosmic billiard ball

	The long trek

	Rendezvous with a comet

	Comets and asteroids

	Debris of the Solar System: asteroids Otawara and Siwa

	Comet 46P/Wirtanen

	Giotto and Comet Halley

	The spacecraft

	Spacecraft design

	The Rosetta Lander

	Long-distance communication

	Science

	Science from the Orbiter

	Science from the Orbiter (2)

	Science from the Lander

	Multimedia

	Image Gallery

	Video Gallery

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Rosetta will drop a lander onto a comet for the first time

The Rosetta Lander

The 100 kg Rosetta Lander is provided by a European consortium under the leadership of the German Aerospace Research Institute (DLR). Other members of the consortium are ESA and institutes from Austria, Finland, France,Hungary, Ireland, Italy and the UK.

The box-shaped Lander is carried on the side of the Orbiter until it arrives at Comet Wirtanen. Once the Orbiter is aligned correctly, the ground commands the Lander to self-eject from the main spacecraft and unfold its three legs, ready for a gentle touchdown at the end of the ballistic descent. On landing, the legs damp out most of the kinetic energy to reduce the chance of bouncing, and they can rotate, lift or tilt to return the Lander to an upright position.

Immediately after touchdown, a harpoon is fired to anchor the Lander to the ground and prevent it from escaping from the comet's extremely weak gravity. The minimum mission target is 65 hours, but surface operations may continue for many months.

Lander Design

The Lander structure consists of a baseplate, an instrument platform, and a polygonal sandwich construction, all made of carbon fibre. Some of the instruments and subsystems are beneath a hood, which is covered with solar cells. An antenna transmits data from the surface to Earth via the Orbiter.

The Lander carries nine experiments, with a total mass of about 21 kg. It also carries a drilling system to take samples of subsurface material.

Last update: 12 December 2002

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