DW's space exploration retrospective 2015
It was an exciting year in space! A probe made it all the way to Pluto and its moons, and the comet Chury had its great day. The ESA received a new director, and SpaceX taught us all a lesson in perseverance.
Pluto gets a visit
It took nine years to get there, and this July New Horizons finally made it to the dwarf planet. Ever since, dazzling images of Pluto have been coming back to us. But the probe didn't only bring cameras along. It also has plasma spectrometers to help us get a better sense of what Pluto's all about!
Chury gets its Icarus on
The comet 67p/Tschurjumow-Gerasimenko reached the point closest to the sun on its long journey through space. Never before had a robot been in a position as good as this to observe the process of comet-evaporation. But have no fear, Chury survived. It will return to the vicinity of the sun in six years to consummate its Icarus complex.
Philae, can you hear me?
Following its landing in November 2014, we lost contact with Philae, but then out of nowhere in July this year it got back in touch. From the way it looks, the lander was able to charge its batteries while near the sun. Philae also sent new data to Rosetta, but ever since we haven't heard anything. But researchers haven't given up. Rosetta will keep searching for contact with Philae in 2016.
A cosmological handshake
Researchers at the German Space Agency and the ESA were able to conduct a special experiment this year that led to a handshake between the ISS and Earth. This autumn, the first tele-handshake in history was performed when Justin the DLR Robot in Germany remotely shook hands with a cosmonaut in space - using force feedback.
Off in search of gravity
This December the LISA Pathfinder began a mission to test the very concept of gravitational wave detection. It is currently heading to where the gravity of the Earth and sun become negligible. That's where its never-before-seen experiments will be conducted. They could help us search for gravitational waves throughout our solar system.
Is there water or not?
And the answer is a resounding - maybe! In September, NASA announced that gullies had been found on Mars suggesting the Red Planet was wetter than we had ever thought before. But a team of French scientists have since refuted that hypothesis. The gullies could have just as easily been formed by frozen carbon dioxide.
What goes up must come down!
SpaceX had some great news to close off its year when the private company successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket. Repeated failures and even an explosion during a transportation flight to ISS left SpaceX with its back to the wall. But then in December the triumph happened. The Falcon 9 took off and landed exactly according to plan.