
Chasing a Comet: The Rosetta Mission
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft spends a decade crossing the solar system to reach comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and this film follows the mission from launch through the attempt to put a lander, Philae, on the comet's nucleus as it swings close to the Sun. Footage from mission control in Darmstadt and interviews with ESA scientists and engineers explain why chasing a comet is harder than it sounds: 67P is a small, irregular, tumbling body, and Rosetta has to match its speed and orbit it at close range before any landing can happen. Animations reconstruct the spacecraft's path and the comet's structure, while the scientists lay out what a successful touchdown could reveal about the ice and dust left over from the solar system's formation. The film treats the mission's uncertainty honestly, showing the tension in the control room as controllers wait for signals across hundreds of millions of kilometers, with no guarantee the landing gear will work on a surface no one has ever touched.