A robotic team has embarked an incredible research route, delivering a 3 tonne package to the surface of a comet.

The mission is one of the most extreme logistical challenges ever undertaken, but the payoff will be worth it.

A team at the European Space Agency (ESA) have today received a message telling them the Rosetta spaceship is awake.

Rosetta will send its companion Philae to grab hold of a passing comet this year, and assess its chemical make-up. The Philae probe should shed some light on just how the chemicals that led to life on Earth actually got here.

This morning’s astounding communiqué means a probe the ESA sent into space nearly ten years ago will now slingshot itself around a few planets, gathering enough speed to latch on to the flying ball of dirt and ice known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The Rosetta mission is certainly not an express delivery.

The mothership and its probe have been in space since 2004, flying a path that uses the gravitational fields of Earth and Mars as a slingshot to pick up speed.

The duo has been powered off since 2011 when it entered the final leg of its warm-up run, returning from close to the orbit of Jupiter.

Now Rosetta is awake, re-energised and ready to seize its destiny on the hyper-sonic surface of a space rock.

The next few months will be an ever greater challenge for the ESA team, as they complete new calculations to pinpoint the exact point Rosetta needs Philae to hit, landing on the comet travelling 38,600 km/hr.

The Rosetta mission hopes to take drill samples from the icy rock of the comet. It is hoped that the team will discover interesting organic material in its composition, the kind that may have been deposited on Earth an stimulated the emergence of life.

“We have our comet-chaser back,” says Alvaro Giménez, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.

“With Rosetta, we will take comet exploration to a new level. This incredible mission continues our history of ‘firsts’ at comets, building on the technological and scientific achievements of our first deep space mission Giotto, which returned the first close-up images of a comet nucleus as it flew past Halley in 1986.”

“This was one alarm clock not to hit snooze on,” added ESA’s Rosetta mission manager Fred Jansen.

“After a tense day we are absolutely delighted to have our spacecraft awake and back online.”

Rosetta even has its own Twitter account, accessible here, where it will provide regular updates and information.