Science Scheduling Challenge for Philae Lander

The Rosetta orbiter reached its target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, mid-2014 at a distance of 3 astronomical units (AU) from the sun. For the first time ever, a spacecraft could escort a comet during an extended period of time and especially while getting closer to the sun (at perihelion in August 2015, 67P was at distance of 1.24 AU from the sun). An exceptional device, the so-called Philae Lander, was also on board Rosetta until its delivery in November 2014. It was the first device designed to land on a comet surface and to perform in situ analysis of the nucleus. Philae was a contribution to the Rosetta mission by a European consortium, composed by DLR, CNES, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Italian Space Agency (ASI), Hungary Research Institute (KFKI), United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Space Technology Ireland Ltd (STIL), and Austrian Space Research Institute (IWF).