ESA Rosetta: Landing Site on Comet 67/P named "Agilkia"

This image taken by ESA's Rosetta robe, shows the Philae lander's possible future landing site, called "Agilkia," on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. 

Image taken on Oct. 30, 2014. 

Credit: ESA /Rosetta /NAVCAM

A probe chasing a comet is about to make a daring attempt to land on its deep-space target, and now, the robot's landing site officially has a name.

The Rosetta mission's Philae lander is expected to make its home on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at a site now called "Agilkia," European Space Agency officials announced today (Nov. 4).

The new name was chosen from 8,000 entries after space agency officials issued a request to the public for suggestions.

The name Agilkia was suggested by more than 150 people as part of the competition. (Until today, the landing site was unofficially called "Site J.")

The new name comes from an island on the Nile River in Egypt. The name fits with the other monikers given to different parts of the comet-chasing mission.

The Philae lander is named for an obelisk discovered on Philae Island in the Nile, while Rosetta, the spacecraft that has carried Philae into deep space, is named after the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian tablet that helped modern archaeologists translate hieroglyphics.

Some of the artifacts found on Philae Island were actually relocated to Agilkia Island to protect them.

"The decision was very tough," the DLR German Aerospace Center's Felix Huber, chairman of the Philae Lander Steering Committee, said in a statement.

"We received so many good suggestions on how to name Site J, and we were delighted with such an enthusiastic response from all over the world. We wish to thank all participants for sharing their great ideas with us."

The goal of the $1.6 billion (1.3 billion euros) Rosetta mission is to learn more about the science of comets.

Scientists are also interested in researching what comets might reveal about the way life evolved in the solar system.

Officials chose the landing site because it has some smooth terrain, and could be the safest area to set down the probe.

While many people suggested Agilkia as the landing site name, ESA officials chose Alexandre Brouste of France as the winner of the competition.

Brouste will get to watch the live landing event, expected to take place on Nov. 12, from ESA's Space Operations Control Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

"In eight days' time, Philae will be deployed from the orbiter onto Agilkia," Fred Jansen, ESA Rosetta mission manager, said in the same statement.

"On 12 November, we'll be attempting a unique comet landing, an even more ambitious endeavor to unlock secrets of our most remote origins." 

ESA Rosetta Team Announce Selection of Landing Site on Comet 67/P - Video

The European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta team will host a webcast to announce the selection of the primary landing spot on a comet for the Rosetta mission's Philae lander on Monday (Sept. 15).

The webcast starts at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT). Rosetta arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August and since then, scientists have been narrowing down candidate landing sites for the Philae lander.

ESA ExoMars: Mars Landing Site selection

The ESA ExoMars "longlist". Two proposals were received for Mars' Mawrth Vallis, but these were virtually the same

The ESA has published the "longlist" of eight sites it is considering as a destination for the ExoMars rover.

The 300kg vehicle will be put on the surface of the Red Planet in January 2019 to search for evidence of past or present life.

It should operate for at least seven months and will carry a drill to probe up to 2m underground.

The sites are generally clustered in a relatively tight zone close to the equator. They are: Hypanis Vallis, Shalbatana (Simud) Vallis, Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum (x2), Coogoon Valles, Oxia Palus and Southern Isidis.

The ExoMars Landing Site Selection Working Group is meeting now in Madrid to begin the process of downselection.

The teams that proposed these locations will make their case during the Spanish gathering (two, virtually identical proposals were received for Mawrth Vallis).

It is hoped to have a shortlist of no more than four locations in June or July. These will then be intensively studied, calling on new high-resolution pictures and mineralogical data acquired by satellites in orbit at Mars.

A final decision is likely to be announced in 2017. This will probably take the form of a first choice and a back-up.

We've been talking about ExoMars for a long time. The project has had several ups and downs, but it is now moving positively in the right direction.

The venture is a joint undertaking with the Russians, who, as well as providing the launch rocket in May 2018, and some of the instrumentation, will also build the landing system.

This will see the rover enter the Martian atmosphere in 2019 in a protective shell, deploying parachutes and retro-rockets to reduce the descent velocity.

The robotic vehicle will arrive at the surface on a legged lander, driving down a ramp to begin its grand traverse.

Everything hinges on a safe touchdown, of course. However, scientifically, it's vital ExoMars goes to the right place.

I have used two maps on this page to help explain how the final decision will be made.

They are both Mercator projections of Mars which will be familiar from Earth maps that also pull the 360-degree globe on to a flat surface.

For reference, I've marked the locations of the two current American rovers - Curiosity and Opportunity - on the top map.

Choosing a site is a trade-off between what's scientifically desirable and what's achievable with the available engineering.

ExoMars wants to search for life markers. Its best chance of finding these will be to go to places where there is abundant evidence for long-duration, or frequently reoccurring, water activity.

This will exist on the old terrains of Mars i.e. ones that are billions of years old.

These are places where you would hope to roll across recently exposed fine-grained sediments; the kind of clay-bearing mudstones that Curiosity has been enjoying in Gale Crater.

Astronauts Malenchenko, Williams and Hoshide, touched down in Kazakhstan

Russian space agency helicopters and vehicles stand near the Soyuz capsule after the spacecraft 's landing near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan.

Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and two astronauts, Sunita Williams of the US and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan, touched down on the steppes of Kazakhstan in a Russian Soyuz capsule after spending over four months aboard the International Space Station.

Picture: MAXIM SHIPENKOV/AFP/Getty Images

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Landing Site named Bradbury

Nasa Mars Rover Curiosity's Heat Shield, Meet Mars - YouTube

This sequence of images shows the heat shield from NASA's Mars Science Laboratory hitting the ground on Mars and raising a cloud of dust.

The images were taken by the Mars Descent Imager on the mission's Curiosity rover while the rover was still suspended on a parachute, after the spacecraft had jettisoned the heat shield.

A dark spot, the shadow of the heat shield, enters the scene from lower left, moving toward the center. The bright heat shield itself is also apparent just before the shadow and hardware meet in the impact on the surface.

The area of ground visible in the images is about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) across. The frames shown here are cropped portions of full-frame images from the Mars Descent Imager.

The sequence includes 25 frames, repeated in five run-throughs for this presentation. The action is full speed in the first, fourth and fifth run-throughs. It is one-half and one-eighth speeds in the second and third run-throughs.

Human Habitation on Mars: MarsOne introduction film - YouTube

Mars One will take humanity to Mars in 2023, to establish the foundation of a permanent settlement from which we will prosper, learn, and grow. Before the first crew lands, Mars One will have established a habitable, sustainable settlement designed to receive new astronauts every two years.

To accomplish this, Mars One has developed a precise, realistic plan based entirely upon existing technologies. It is both economically and logistically feasible, in motion through the aggregation of existing suppliers and experts in space exploration.

We invite you to participate in this journey, by sharing our vision with your friends, by supporting our effort, and perhaps, by becoming the next Mars astronaut yourself.

Visit the MarsOne website here! http://mars-one.com/en/

NASA ISS Expedition 30 Crew Returns to Earth - YouTube

Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank of NASA, Russian Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineer Anatoly Ivanishin landed safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan on April 27, 2012, after bidding farewell to the Expedition 31 crew and undocking their Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft from the International Space Station.

The trio completed almost six months in space following a launch in November 2011. They are shown being assisted into reclining chairs by Russian personnel and beginning their adaptation to gravity after they were extracted from their capsule in Kazakhstan.

NASA Orion: Testing the Orion Crew Vehicle's Parachutes

On April 17, 2012, NASA conducted a test of the Orion crew vehicle's entry, descent and landing parachutes high above the Arizona desert in preparation for the vehicle's orbital flight test, Exploration Flight Test-1. 

The primary objectives were to determine how the entire system would respond if one of the three main parachutes inflated too quickly and to validate the drogue parachute design by testing at a high dynamic pressure that closely mimicked the environments expected for Exploration Flight Test-1.

Image Credit: NASA

HiRISE | Proposed MSR Landing Site in Jezero Crater

Proposed MSR Landing Site in Jezero Crater

HiRISE | Proposed MSR Landing Site in Jezero Crater (ESP_023102_1985)

NASA MARS: Daybreak at Gale Crater - Rover Curiosity's Landing Site

This computer-generated images depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight, with an area including Gale Crater, beginning to catch morning light.

Northward is to the left. Gale is the crater with a mound inside it near the center of the image. NASA selected Gale Crater as the landing site for Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory.

The mission's rover will be placed on the ground in a northern portion of Gale crater in August 2012.

Gale Crater is 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter and holds a layered mountain rising about 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the crater floor. The intended landing site is at 4.5 degrees south latitude, 137.4 degrees east longitude.

This view was created using three-dimensional information from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, which flew on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. The vertical dimension is not exaggerated. Colour information is based on general Mars color characteristics.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA: LRO pictures of Apollo 12 landing site

This image from LRO shows the spacecraft's first look at the Apollo 12 landing site. The Intrepid lunar module descent stage, experiment package (ALSEP) and Surveyor 3 spacecraft are all visible. Astronaut footpaths are marked with unlabeled arrows.

This image is 824 meters (about 900 yards) wide. The top of the image faces North. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University