20 years ago, on March 2, 2004, the Rosetta spacecraft was launched by ESA on a mission to perform a detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
The Rosetta mission was the first to rendezvous with a comet, the first to follow a comet on its orbit around the Sun, and the first to deploy a lander to a comet's surface.
After a 10 year journey, on 12 Nov 2014, Rosetta's lander named Philae performed the first-ever landing on a comet. However, its anchoring harpoons failed to deploy and a thruster designed to hold the probe to the surface did not fire. Philae bounced twice off the surface, up to a height of 1 km, and settled in an awkward location and orientation unable to charge its batteries.
However, during the flight, the probe's cameras and instruments sent valuable science data, including info on the molecular composition of the cometary material.
Here is a reconstruction of Philae’s bouncy flight -
As Rosetta moved away from the Sun in 2016, instead of putting Rosetta into hibernation, mission managers made the decision to guide Rosetta down to the comet's surface and end the mission on impact, gathering photographs and instrument readings along the way.
This video shows the view from Rosetta as it descended to its final resting place on the comet on Sep 30, 2016 —
Now let’s land today’s puzzle composed by American Chess composer Frederick E. Gamage (1882 -1956) in 1943.
P.S.
The chess puzzle is published on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. ET.
It is customary for advanced players to wait till midnight ET before posting the full solution. Before then, they provide some stats about the solution (e.g., the minimum number of distinct checkmate moves), help guide others, and sometimes post hints. But there are no hard-and-fast rules; feel free to post comments as you please.