On this day in space: March 2, 2004: Rosetta spacecraft launches to Comet 67P

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On March 2, 2004, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta mission to study Comet 67P.

On March 2, 2004, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta mission to study Comet 67P.

An artist's depiction of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission as the Philae lander nears a historic landing on the Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Nov. 11, 2014.

An artist's depiction of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission as the Philae lander nears a historic landing on the Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Nov. 11, 2014. (Image credit: ESA/Rosetta)

Rosetta launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana and spent the next decade chasing after Comet 67P. When it arrived in 2014, Rosetta dropped a small lander called Philae onto the comet. Philae had a rough landing and went missing after it tumbled across the comet.

Rosetta's cameras finally spotted Philae just three weeks before the end of the 12-year mission. In the end, Rosetta intentionally crash-landed into the comet.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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