European space scientists are counting down to the launch of Rosetta, the mission to put a lander on a comet. The £600m, 12-year space expedition is scheduled to launch from French Guiana's Kourou spaceport on 26 February aboard an Ariane-5 G+ rocket. But the high-risk mission will need to overcome major technical challenges. "Rosetta will be the first ever spacecraft to perform a soft landing on a comet's nucleus," UK science minister Lord Sainsbury told a news conference. "This will allow Rosetta to carry out more in-depth study (of a comet) than has ever been done before." The Rosetta spacecraft will despatch a lander, named Philae, to touch down on the icy nucleus of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The mission continues a long association between the European Space Agency (Esa) and comet exploration that was cemented when the Giotto probe obtained close-up images of Comet Halley's nucleus in 1986. "Rosetta is psychologically very important for us in Europe, because we did get closest to Halley (with Giotto). So comets are ours," Prof David Southwood, director of science at Esa told BBC News Online.
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