Loughborough College students on the country’s first ever Space Engineering course are today hoping to share in the making of history.
After a mission which began ten years ago, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe lander separated early this morning, November 12, and seven hours later will touch down on Comet 67P. If successful, this will be the first time a probe has ever landed on a comet.
Students on the Loughborough College Space Engineering 16+ programme, launched in association with the National Space Academy, are hoping to see the moment of touchdown, captured on live link up to the National Space Centre, when the landing gear will absorb the forces while ice screws in each of the probe’s feet and a harpoon system locks Philae to the surface. At the same time, a thruster will push it down to counteract the impulse of the harpoon.
The aim is for the Philae to study the comet's core and the haze around the nucleus, the coma. The "comet sniffer" has already detected water, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane on the comet since beginning its scientific work in May – 1.2 million miles away from 67P. By August it was sitting only 60 miles away.
Loughborough College Head of Technology Dr Martin Killeen said: “This landing is not without risk. This comet is basically a mountain of ice shards with steep slopes and fissures. It also has very low gravity, which is why it needs to screw itself in and fix itself to the surface with harpoons, to stop it bouncing back into space.
“But that will make it gripping and if it is successful our students will be sharing an historic moment in space history. No mission has ever made a soft landing on a comet.”
Philae’s descent should take seven hours, with a signal confirming touchdown received at Earth at around 16:00 GMT.