The successful landing of Philae on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko this November was an extraordinary achievement and of course demonstrates – despite the immense challenges – that it is possible. The Philae mission was, in a sense, a proof of concept for cometary landing and this, for me, answers the question ‘what does it mean‘.

Of course there is a very large distance between proof of concept and commercial application, so it would be quite wrong to assume that Philae means that space mining (of planets, asteroids or comets) is just around the corner. Undoubtedly the opportunities are immense and – as pressure on Earth’s limited and diminishing resources mounts – there is an inevitability about humankind’s eventual exploitation of off-world resources. But the costs of space mining are literally astronomical, so unthinkable for all but the wealthiest companies or, indeed, nations.

Perhaps multi-national collaborative ventures are a more realistic proposition and – for me – more desirable; the exploitation of the solar system is something I believe should benefit all of humankind, not just a wealthy elite.

But politics aside, there are profoundly difficult technical challenges. You cannot remotely control this kind of operation from Earth, so a very high level of autonomy is required and, as Philae dramatically demonstrated, we need autonomous systems that are able to deal with unknown and unpredictable situations then re-plan and if necessary adapt – in real-time – to deal with these exigencies. The development of highly adaptive, resilient, self-repairing – even self-evolving – autonomous systems is still in its infancy. These remain fundamental challenges for robotics and AI research. But even if and when they are solved there will be huge engineering challenges, not least of which is how to return the mined materials to Earth.

Bearing in mind that to date only a few hundred kg of moon rock have been successfully returned* and Mars sample-return missions are still at the planning stage, we have a very long way to go before we can contemplate returning sufficient quantities to justify the costs of mining them.

*and possibly a few grains of dust from Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa.

For other views on the Philae touchdown and the future of space mining and exploration, see:

• Touchdown! Rosetta’s Philae makes first ever landing on a comet
• One giant leap: Rosetta and the space mining frontier
• Space mining: Robots in the final frontier

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Still image from animation of Philae separating from Rosetta and descending to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014 (photo:ESA)

UPDATE: ESA’s Rosetta mission has soft-landed its Philae probe on to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The signal confirming the successful touchdown arrived on Earth at 16:03 GMT (17:03 CET), it’s the first time in history that such an extraordinary feat has been achieved and it’s a great milestone for space exploration and Europe. Read here the full press release from ESA.

LIVE VIDEO FEED | In a few hours a major milestone in space exploration will take place when the Rosetta orbiter deploys a small robotic lander named Philae towards comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. This is the first time a spacecraft will reach the surface of a comet and, if successful, will greatly increase our knowledge in this field. Rosetta was launched over 10 years ago and followed an extremely complex trajectory with deep space maneuvers that used the gravity of Earth and Mars to propel it alongside its target and successfully orbit around it. Now the next step, Philae’s landing, will be transmitted live. See the video feed below.

Landing on the comet will be quite tricky: its weak gravity could allow the lander to bounce and escape into deep space. The shape of the surface was unknown until Rosetta came close enough so the landing spot was only recently selected. Philae is equipped with shock absorbers, spring loaded drills and even a harpoon that should be enough to keep it attached upon landing.

You can watch the live transmission from ESA below:

Tweets by @ESA_Rosetta

Overview of Philae lander instruments and their function, from DLR

Reaching 67P wasn’t easy. A rare Ariane 5 failure delayed its launch and the mission was repurposed to its current destination. The trajectory was extremely complicated with multiple gravity assist maneuvers, and required the spacecraft to enter hibernation mode, going into standby to save energy. Rosetta is powered by two huge solar panels that demand constant solar exposure instead. Other spacecraft (like Voyager 2) that went this far from the sun, used radioisotope generators.

The video below show the full trajectory of the mission:

An excellent overview of Rosetta/Philae mission is provided by the following Royal aeronautical society podcast. Paolo Ferri (Head of Mission Operations Department, European Space Operations Centre, ESA) introduces the Rosetta mission and its scientific objectives, describing also the spacecraft, its payload and its lander.

Additional resources:

ESA – Rosetta mission
ESA – Rosetta blog
DLR – Rosetta mission

#CometLanding (official hashtag)
@ESA_Rosetta
@Philae2014

Philae separating from Rosetta and descending to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014. (Credit:ESA/ATG medialab)

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• One giant leap: Rosetta and the space mining frontier
• Space mining: Robots in the final frontier
• Astronaut on International Space Station successfully controls K10 rover on Earth, supporting use of telerobotics in future deep space missions

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.