European Space Agency Picks Site For First Comet Landing In November

An anonymous reader writes Europe's Rosetta mission, which aims to land on a comet later this year, has identified what it thinks is the safest place to touch down. From the article: "Scientists and engineers have spent weeks studying the 4km-wide "ice mountain" known as 67P, looking for a location they can place a small robot. They have chosen what they hope is a relatively smooth region on the smaller of the comet's two lobes. But the team is under no illusions as to how difficult the task will be. Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, currently sweeping through space some 440 million km from Earth, is highly irregular in shape. Its surface terrain is marked by deep depressions and towering cliffs. Even the apparently flat surfaces contain potentially hazardous boulders and fractures. Avoiding all of these dangers will require a good slice of luck as well as careful planning.

Comments

Re:Sounds challenging.

[cusco]

Actually the comet does not have enough gravity of its own to allow the spacecraft to orbit it, so Rosetta is in a solar orbit just inside of 67P. Since in that orbit it would quickly outpace the comet ESA has devised a generally triangular flight path that keeps it relatively close while enabling the best use of solar illumination.