Rosetta

A European Space Agency mission to a comet, scheduled for launch in 2003. The original plan was to bring back a sample from a comet nucleus for analysis on Earth, but this idea was abandoned in favour of analysis of cometary material by instruments to be carried on the craft, which will rendezvous with the comet for an investigation lasting up to 18 months. The target is Comet 46P/Wirtanen, which would be reached by Rosetta in 2011.