back to article Euro space boffins ready, mere hours from flinging Rosetta lander at Comet 67P

The ESA's comet probe Philae has been given the first official nod in its historic attempt to land on Comet 67P: boffins at the European Space Agency say the lander's Rosetta mothercraft is on the right path towards the soaring cosmic rock. The agency's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) Flight Dynamics staff had to …

  1. ravenviz Silver badge
    Devil

    Brid-Aine,

    I'm in a meeting when it's scheduled to land, can you ask them to postpone it for an hour?

    Thanks.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Headmaster

      You have to demonstrate sufficient level of pointy-hairedness first, preferably using a signed affidavit.

  2. x 7

    "into a speeding comet"?????

    "onto a speeding comet" surely?????

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: "into a speeding comet"?????

      The lander is harpooning the rock and then, once on the surface, drilling into it.

      C.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: "into a speeding comet"?????

        WHAT WOULD LOHAN SAY?

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: "into a speeding comet"?????

        "The lander is harpooning the rock and then, once on the surface, drilling into it."

        Yes. That's ruined some good SciFi. Everyone knows that comets are just big dustballs or collections of rock and ice boulders that a spaceship can carefully manoeuvre into to collect samples, mine or "hitch" a ride. They are NOT supposed to look this solid. We need more missions like this to find the "proper" comets. See, for example, Into The Comet, Arthur C. Clarke

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Elmer Phud

      ESA ot NASA

      (need 'pedant' or 'smug git'* icon)

      *(sorry, an image of a certain politician immediately popped up)

    2. MonkeyBob
      WTF?

      NASA?

      Surely you mean ESA.

  4. Steven Raith

    I approve....

    ...of yet another piece of sci-fi being turned into reality.

    If you'd have told me fifteen years ago we'd be whipping a probe through space, prepping to punch a hole in a fucking comet for science, I'd have laughed like a drain.

    Cool stuff. Keep it up, boffins.

  5. bex

    After the brilliant and super complicated deployment of curiosity rover successfully hopefully this will go off without a hitch

  6. Kharkov
    Joke

    1 body landed on, several billion more to go...

    That's one small step for Wall-E, one giant leap for Wall-E-kind...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahhhhhhhh

    So that's why people learn math!

    Now I see the point.

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