Video: Flight director updates status of comet lander

Europe’s Philae lander found a surface as hard as ice and organic molecules after it bounced to a stop on a comet last week.

Europe’s Philae spacecraft is set to go for landing on a comet, a never-before-tried maneuver that includes a perilous seven-hour descent and an uncontrolled touchdown.

The European Space Agency’s $1.6 billion Rosetta spacecraft closed in Thursday for a deliberate crash landing on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko early Friday, a slow-motion kamikaze plunge to bring the enormously successful mission to an end after more than two years of unprecedented close-range observations.