Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter
The European Space Agency (ESA) is hoping to make history today by attempting to land the Rosetta satellite's Philae probe on a comet.
According to the ESA's website, the probe will be launched at 9.03 (GMT) and it will take seven hours for the probe to reach its destination at around 16.02.
The ESA's team based in Darmstadt, Germany is overseeing the operation, which has been described by the US project manager Art Chmielewski as "one of the hardest things that has ever been done by the human species".
Watch the live feed
Once it lands on the comet, the Philae probe will secure itself to the surface of the comet using screws and harpoons.
There is a possibility that the probe could collide with cliffs but the mission manager Fred Jansen says that despite the risks, there is still a 75 per cent success ratio rate.
Show all 22 1 /22In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Image of Comet 67P/CG taken by the Philae lander from a distance of approximately 3km from the surface
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Rosetta's lander Philae took this parting shot of its mothership shortly after separation
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Parting shot of the Philae lander after separation, captured by one of Rosetta's cameras
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission A technician celebrates after the successful landing of the Philae lander, in the control room at the ESA headquarters in Darmstadt
Reuters
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Scientists celebrate at a mission observation centre in Toulouse, southern France as they receive information that Philae has landed on the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet
AP
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Astronomer Klim Ivanovych Churyumov, who discovered the comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 1969, reacts after the successful landing of the Philae lander on the comet
Reuters
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission A model demonstrates how the landing device Philae, of the space probe Rosetta, stands on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at the press center of the satellite control center of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany
EPA
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission An artist impression of Rosetta's lander Philae on the surface of comet
Getty Images
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Picture taken on October 28 by the navigation camera on Rosetta shows the boulder-strewn neck region of comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It was captured from a distance of 9.7 km from the center of the comet
Getty Images
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Picture taken on October 24 shows a raised plateau on the larger lobe of the comet
Getty Images
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission The probe is supposed to fly to a comet and put down a small laboratory on the top of it
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission A scientist from the European Space Agency with an airworthy copy of space probe 'Rosetta' in the control center in Darmstadt, Germany
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Maneuvers designed for the actual space probe are simulated with the replica. 'Rosetta' will be woken up from an energy saving hibernation after 957 days
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission A European Space Agency employee sits in the control room for the Rosetta mission in Darmstadt, Germany
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Scientists at the European Space Agency are expecting their comet-chasing probe Rosetta to wake from almost three years of hibernation
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Europe's Rosetta probe on a NASA mission
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission NASA is participating in the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, whose goal is to observe one such space-bound icy dirt ball from up close for months on end
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission An impression of the Philae lander
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission ESA probe Rosetta with Mars in the background. The three-tonne probe blasted off aboard an an Ariane V rocket from Kourou, French Guiana in 2004
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission Rosetta orbiter deploying the Philae lander to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the spacecraft measures 32 m across including the solar arrays, while the comet nucleus is thought to be about 4 km wide
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission The spacecraft, festooned with 25 instruments between its lander and orbiter (including three from NASA), is programmed to 'wake up' from hibernation
In pictures: European Space Agency's Rosetta mission European Space Agency's Rosetta mission An Ariane V carrying the three-tonne probe Rosetta blasting off from Kourou, beginning a decade-long quest to hunt a comet in the depths of the Solar System and shadow it around the Sun in a bid to tease out secrets of how life began on Earth
If the mission is successful, it will be the first time a robot has landed on a comet.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies