Philae ( or ) is a
robotic European Space Agency lander that accompanied the
Rosetta spacecraft until it landed on
comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, more than ten years after departing Earth. On 12 November 2014, the probe achieved the first-ever soft landing on a
comet nucleus. Its instruments obtained the first images from a comet's surface.
Philae is monitored and operated from
DLR's Lander Control Center in
Cologne, Germany. Several of the instruments on
Philae made the first direct analysis of a comet, sending back data that will be analysed to determine the composition of the surface.