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TY - UNPB AU - Ercolani, A. ED - Corvetti, Lou ED - Riches, Kathleen ED - Schaa, Volker RW TI - European Space Agency (ESA): The Fantastic Journey of Rosetta and its Companion Philae J2 - Proc. of ICALEPCS2015, Melbourne, Australia, 17-23 October 2015 C1 - Melbourne, Australia T2 - International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems T3 - 15 LA - english AB - The European Space Agency (ESA) is an international organisation with 22 Member States. Its goal is to coordinate and implement the development of the European Space program, to know more about our Earth, space, the solar system and the universe. In March 2004 ESA launched its probe Rosetta and its lander module Philae on a decade long journey to the first historical rendezvous with a comet (67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko). After several gravity assists with Mars and the Earth and a 2.5 year hibernation phase, Rosetta woke up in January 2014 to perform the critical operations of capture into the comet's orbit (August 2014). The successful landing of Philae on the comet (November 2014) and the relay of the first pictures and scientific data from the surface represented a very emotional moment, and a fundamental step in the history of space exploration. Rosetta's operations continue during the journey of comet P67 around the sun, with all instruments on board collecting invaluable science data. In the first years of my career at ESA, I have been responsible for the development of the Mission Control System (MCS) of Rosetta. The MCS is a complex software system which allows sending telecommands to the satellite and to receive and decode its telemetry. The talk will cover the fantastic journey of Rosetta and its companion Philae, plus some considerations on the development of critical control systems for remote spacecraft. PB - JACoW CP - Geneva, Switzerland ER -