14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) have a difficult day ahead of them today, January 20 – they have to wake up the slumbering Rosetta space probe, which has been in hibernation mode for more than 31 months. It will rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko later this year.
Rosetta was launched into space on March 2, 2004, aboard an Ariane 5G+ delivery system, from the ESA Kourou Spaceport, in French Guiana, South America. The probe was put in hibernation mode in June 2011, in order to conserve energy for its complex mission.
Located around 800 million kilometers (500 million miles) away from the Sun at this point, Rosetta will receive its wake-up command today, and ESA mission controllers will have a difficult time remaining composed until they hear back from the spacecraft. Rosetta will reach the comet this May.
Aboard the spacecraft is the Philae lander, which will use grappling hooks to affix itself to the surface of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Philae carries a suite of 10 scientific instruments, which it will use to characterize the comet as Rosetta maps it from above, Astrobiology Magazine reports.