Rosetta mission includes Toronto-area engineer
'There were tears in the control room' says Jakub Ermanek of Burlington
A Toronto-area man was among the hundreds of scientists celebrating Wednesday when, for the first time, a man-made probe touched down on a comet.
Jakub Ermanek of Burlington, Ont., had a front-row seat when the Philae lander touched down on comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko — he was one of hundreds of team members watching from a control room in Germany.
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"It was terribly exciting," Ermanek told CBC News via Skype. "I've been on this project for two years and it was amazingly exciting for me … there were tears in the control room."
Ermanek is an operations engineer, part of the team at the European Space Agency that sends operating instructions to the Rosetta spacecraft, which in turn sends instructions to Philae.
"There are so many things about this mission that have never been done before, so getting to be here on the front line is just amazing," he added.
From a report by the CBC's Charlsie Agro