Can You Help Wake Up a Spacecraft?

By Nancy Atkinson - January 9, 2014 at 5:26 PM UTC | Missions
Rosetta_and_Philae_at_comet_node_full_image.jpg

On January 20, 2014 it will be time for the snoozing Rosetta spacecraft to awaken from 31 months of hibernation. Through an online contest, ESA has been looking for a little help in sending a wake-up call to the spacecraft, which will be 673 million kilometers from Earth. The "Wake Up Rosetta!" video contest has yielded some heartwarming, funny, and creative videos from families, school children and more. Here are a few of our favorites, and you can go to the

contest's Facebook page

to find out how to submit your own video, as well as see more videos and vote for your favorite.

The top ten vote-getting videos will be transmitted out to Rosetta via one of ESA's deep-space tracking stations, and there are additional prizes as well, including the top two video creators will be invited to the control center in Darmstadt, Germany for when the Philae lander attempts landing on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in November 2014 after latching on with a harpoon.

ESA themselves have come up with a video story of the Rosetta mission and how it will be awakened:

Find out more about Rosetta's mission

here

, and the

contest here

.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com