DARMSTADT: Europe’s pioneering Rosetta spacecraft concluded a 12-year odyssey with a controlled crash-landing on Friday onto the comet it has orbited and probed for two years to unravel the secrets of the Solar System’s birth, mission controllers said.

“I can confirm the full success of the descent of Rosetta,” Mission Manager Patrick Martin announced to wild cheering in the control centre, based in Darmstadt near Frankfurt in Western Germany.

“Rock-n-roll Rosetta,” added a visibly moved Matt Taylor, the mission’s project scientist, as he stepped from the podium, holding — and shaking — his head.

In the hours before the crash-landing, Rosetta gathered crucial last-gasp data from nearer the galactic wanderer than ever before, its instruments primed to sniff the comet’s gassy halo, measure temperature and gravity, and take close-up pictures of the spot that is now its icy tomb.

The craft had been programmed for a “controlled impact”, at a human walking pace of about 90 cm (35 inches) per second, after a 14-hour freefall from an altitude of 19 kilometres.

Confirmation of the mission’s end came at 1119 GMT, when the spacecraft’s signal — with a 40-minute delay — faded from ground controllers’ computer screens.

The trailblazing craft’s final manoeuvre was executed at a distance of 720 million kilometres from Earth, with the comet zipping through space at a speed of over 14 kilometres per second.

Mission scientists expected it would bounce and tumble about before settling — but Rosetta’s exact fate will never be known as it was instructed to switch off on first impact. The comet chaser was never designed to land.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2016