Philae
Philae was the small lander from the Rosetta mission that made the first landing on a comet in November 2014.
Philae was a 100-kilogram lander carried by Europe's Rosetta spacecraft. It was named after an island in the Nile where an obelisk helped decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. On 12 November 2014 it separated from Rosetta and descended for about seven hours to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
Its harpoons and a thruster meant to hold it down did not work, so Philae bounced off the surface, flew for nearly two hours, bounced again and came to rest at a slant in a shaded crevice. Its instruments worked for about 60 hours on battery power, detecting organic molecules and finding a hard surface beneath softer dust.
Philae fell silent as its battery ran out. Rosetta finally spotted it wedged in its resting place in September 2016, shortly before the main mission ended. Despite its troubled landing, Philae achieved the first controlled touchdown on a comet.
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Level: Explorer Ages 10 and up