A duck-shaped comet that was explored with a lander on site - Rosetta is probably the most emotional mission that Dr Stephan Ulamec has led as project manager.
Dr Stephan Ulamec from DLR's Space Operations and Astronaut Training facility holds the model of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In 2014, he was the project manager responsible for landing the Philae lander on the comet's surface.
As Stephan Ulamec made this statement before the television cameras, the Project Manager had experienced a wild rollercoaster of emotions: during the night, the Philae lander had made a spectacular touchdown on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko – only to bounce off again. And finally, fortunately, landed on the comet's surface. The geophysicist had accompanied the mission for 20 years, right from the start, until the big moment of the first ever comet landing came on 12 November 2014 with the risky touchdown. But the comet landing is not his only mission. As a business unit developer at DLR's Space Operations and Astronaut Training facility, it is also his job to initiate new collaborations and missions with national and international partners.
A comet full of surprises
Printed emails, invitations, scientific publications and notes pile up on his desk. On the wall: a small world map with countless pins marking where Ulamec has been. Two small models of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko sit on the documents as paperweights. Back then, when the Rosetta spacecraft arrived at the target comet with Philae on board following a ten-year flight, an unexpected surprise was in store: The camera on board the probe photographed a celestial body that consisted of two connected parts, shaped like a duck with a head and body. The surface: jagged. There were few flat areas for a safe landing. “The greatest danger at the time was that the lander would topple over after touchdown.” If that had happened, the mission – planned over many years – would have been as good as a failure. Anyone who researches and works in the field of space exploration not only has to have a great deal of perseverance but must also always be aware that what he or she carefully plans and tests can take a completely different turn under certain circumstances, because none of these projects and missions are routine.
Understanding the formation of the Solar System
Eagerly awaiting the signal for a successful landing
Stephan Ulamec (left) follows the landing of Philae on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in the control room.
The Austrian already became interested in space and the celestial bodies of the Solar System during his studies and doctorate in Graz. In 1994, he joined the Microgravity User Support Center (MUSC) – initially as a systems engineer and later as project manager for the Philae lander. The aim of the mission: nothing less than to be able to draw conclusions about how the development of the Solar System and the emergence of life on Earth by analysing a comet. International partners, scientists with the aim of obtaining the most unique data possible, engineers setting the limits of what was technically feasible – Stephan Ulamec had to bring them all together as project manager. The prerequisites for this: diplomacy, assertiveness and the motivation to successfully carry out something that had never been done before. In the control room, he was the final decision-maker as to whether Philae should land or not. “It was a very intense time,” he says today, looking back on the mission, which he helped to organise from start to finish.
Missions to asteroids, comets and moons
A rover for the Martian moon Phobos
Stephan Ulamec is one of two scientific directors of the IDEFIX rover, which is expected to be launched to Mars in 2026.
In the less intensive period, for example during the years in which Philae was travelling to its destination, the now 58-year-old prepared and led other collaborations and missions. In 2018, the MASCOT lander landed on the asteroid Ryugu. Ulamec was active as payload manager as part of this Japanese Hayabusa2 mission. The Franco-German rover IDEFIX is expected to be launched in 2026 on the Japanese MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission to the Martian moon Phobos, where it will be deployed around two years later to collect data on the surface of the Martian moon using several instruments. Ulamec is one of two principal investigators of the rover. He is also on the Science Management Board for the Hera mission, which is scheduled to launch later this year – the mission is to explore the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos.
The mission with Philae remains one of a kind
An asteroid by the name of Ulamec
His passion for exploring small bodies has earned him one of his ‘own’: in 2017, the International Astronomical Union named an asteroid after him. But what does ‘his’ asteroid look like? We don't know exactly. (11818) Ulamec has a diameter of around nine kilometres and orbits the Sun at a distance of over 400 million kilometres. The celestial bodies that Stephan Ulamec specialises in are far away from Earth and have hardly been studied.
The universe and the celestial bodies of our solar system are the objects of Dr Stephan Ulamec's research.
How did the Solar System develop and how did life on Earth come about? The geophysicist has been working on these questions since his studies.
Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko was about 500 million kilometres away from Earth when it landed. Despite Philae's bounce, the engineers and scientists managed to activate all ten instruments on the lander at least once. It was a mission of many firsts: For the first time, a human-made object touched down on a comet in a controlled manner; for the first time, a camera was able to record the surface of a comet on site. And for the first time, the COSAC mass spectrometer, in which Ulamec was also scientifically involved, was used to analyse dust particles directly from the surface of a comet. After around 64 hours, the batteries were depleted and Philae went into hibernation. In the summer of 2015 – after a good six months – it reported back to its ground team and sent data. However, a further communication no longer worked – presumably the receivers on board Philae had not survived the cold hibernation undamaged. And even though Stephan Ulamec is or will be involved in many missions: “The mission with Philae remains one of a kind.”
