Spacecraft's 12-year mission comes to dramatic end as it lands on comet

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft will end its 12-year mission Friday in dramatic fashion as it lands on a comet, powers down and embarks on a silent trek across the universe.

The Rosetta mission was launched in 2004 and after 10 years flying through space, it intercepted the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet on Aug. 6, 2014.

Since then, the spacecraft has been sending data back to Earth using advanced scientific instruments, several of which that were developed by NASA.

Rosetta will start its descent to the comet at about 6:15 a.m. and a controlled impact should take place at about 7:20 a.m., ending the mission.

NASA will be broadcasting the spacecraft's final minutes live Friday morning.

On its way down, the spacecraft will analyze gas and dust, and will take high-resolution images of the comet nucleus.

“Rosetta will keep giving us data to the very end,” said Bonnie Buratti, project scientist for the U.S. Rosetta project from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Scientists were forced to end the Rosetta mission because its ever-increasing distance from the sun has resulted in significantly reduced solar power to run the spacecraft and its instruments, NASA said.

“It will be hard to see that last transmission from Rosetta come to an end,” said Art Chmielewski of JPL, project manager for the U.S. Rosetta. “But whatever melancholy we will be experiencing will be more than made up for in the elation that we will feel to have been part of this truly historic mission of exploration.”

At its farthest point, Churyumov-Gerasimenko will be more than 500 million miles from the sun.

Cox Media Group