A EUROPEAN spacecraft that will hunt down a comet in search of clues to the origin of life on Earth will blast off tomorrow from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

The Rosetta probe will take 12 years to catch up with Churyumov-Gerasimenko before becoming the first spacecraft to make a soft, controlled landing on a comet’s nucleus. The mission aims to unlock the secrets of the Solar System’s beginnings 4.6 billion years ago, of which comets are largely unchanged relics containing the same materials from which the planets were formed.

It will answer questions about what comets are made of and even whether they could have “seeded” Earth with the water and organic chemicals required for the genesis of life.

Rosetta is scheduled to launch at 7.56am GMT aboard an Ariane-5 rocket. It will use three fly-bys of Earth and another of Mars as a “gravity slingshot” to catapult it towards Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which has a core the size of Heathrow airport.

On completing its seven billion-mile journey in 2014, the probe will enter orbit around the comet’s nucleus and drop a washing machine-size lander named Philae on to its surface.

The mother ship takes its name from the Rosetta Stone, discovered in Egypt in 1799, which provided the first key to deciphering hieroglyphics: scientists hope that the data it gathers will offer equally critical insights into the origins of the Solar System and terrestrial life. Its lander is named after an island in the Nile where an obelisk critical to the understanding of the Rosetta Stone was found.

The probe has been delayed twice because of problems with the Ariane-5 rocket. It was scheduled to visit a different comet, named Wirtanen, but the European Space Agency changed its target when the launch window for Wirtanen was missed last year.

Britain has contributed £70 million towards the probe’s £600 million cost, and it was built partially by the satellite company EADS-Astrium, based in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. British scientists have also contributed to 11 of the 21 instruments on it.

Ian Halliday, chief executive of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, said: “This mission will turn science fiction into science fact.

“Every aspect of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko will be analysed, resulting in the most comprehensive set of scientific measurements ever obtained of a comet — and the UK can be justly proud of the significant part it has played.”

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