When the Lander Found the Comet

摘要

It was three in the morning on November 12-still 9 p.m. the prior night on the U.S. East Coast-when Elsa Montagnon, the night shift flight director of the mission control team, woke me with the news I'd waited more than 10 years to hear: "Philae is GO for landing." After traveling 6.5 billion kilometers from home, the spacecraft Rosetta was ready to drop our lander Philae onto the surface of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.