Replay of Part 1 of the Rosetta wake-up media briefing at the ESA Operations Centre ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany, on 20 January 2014.
Highlights include a welcome address from ESA's Thomas Reiter, Director of Human Spaceflight and Operations, reports from inside ESA's Main Control Room and presentations from Alvaro Gimenez, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration and Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Chair of the German Aerospace Centre and Chair of ESA Council.
Rosetta was launched in 2004 and has since travelled around the Sun five times, picking up energy from Earth and Mars to line it up with its final destination: comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. For the coldest, loneliest leg of the mission, as Rosetta travelled out towards the orbit of Jupiter, the spacecraft was put into deep-space hibernation.
In 2014, Rosetta will complete its cruise towards the comet, rendezvousing with it in August, before putting its Philae lander onto the comet’s surface in November, as it begins its journey closer to the Sun.
The spacecraft’s internal alarm clock is set for 10:00 GMT (11:00 CET) on 20 January. Once it has warmed itself up, it should re-establish communication with Earth several hours later.