The European Space Agency launched the Rosetta probe on the 2nd of March 2004 from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. This mission began as a cooperative effort between ESA and NASA to study comets following the success of the Giotto probe during Halley's Comet approach in 1986.
The total cost reached approximately €1.3 billion (US$1.8 billion). Budget constraints forced both agencies to cancel their respective programs by 1993 before ESA redesigned the mission to include an asteroid flyby followed by a comet rendezvous with an attached lander.
The mission included a record-setting hibernation period lasting thirty-one months from June 2011 until January 2014. All electronics except the onboard computer and hibernation heaters were switched off during this deep space phase.
Contact with Earth was briefly restored between June and July 2015 before final shutdown occurred on the 27th of July 2016. The precise landing spot remained unknown until high-resolution images taken in September 2016 confirmed its exact coordinates near Sais.
Rosetta ended its mission by hard-landing on the comet's Ma'at region on the 30th of September 2016. Final data transmission occurred at 10:39:28.895 UTC before impact approximately fourteen hours later.