THUNDEROUS applause erupted at Harwell Campus yesterday as scientists, engineers and researchers revelled in a “bittersweet” moment that saw the end “of the most ambitious space mission.”

There were tears and cheers when a spacecraft landed on a comet at 12.20pm, bringing the €1.4bn Rosetta mission to an end.

Watching a live broadcast of the mission’s final moments at Harwell, where the European Space Agency (ESA) is based, Octavio Camino, from ECSAT, said: “It is a very strange feeling.

“When you have been working on something for so long and then for the next day to wake up and it just not be there anymore – you do not know what to do with yourself.”

Mr Camino worked on the Venus Express – ESA’s first spacecraft to visit Venus – which ended in 2014.

He added: “I had the same feeling two years ago.

“You no longer have to wake up in the morning, check these stats, make sure that is working or monitoring all the data you are getting through – you feel a bit lost.”

Rosetta is ESA’s comet-chasing mission which launched on March 2, 2004. It travelled for more than 10 years before homing in on its target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The main spacecraft has been orbiting the comet, watching the way it is evaporated by the sun.

It has been making a chemical inventory that shows what molecules were delivered to the early Earth – possibly forming the basis for early life.

The mission was named after Rosetta Stone, a fragment of an Egyptian stone tablet dating back to 196 BC, which enabled archaeologists to decipher hieroglyphics for the first time.

The spacecraft carried a message on a metal plate in 1,000 different languages in the hope that it will be deciphered in the future.

Dr Geraint Morgan, business development manager: Space Translation at the Open University, said: “This mission has required over 20 years of effort, as teams designed and then built instruments and spacecraft prior to launch in 2004.

“We then chased the comet for 10 years over four billion miles across the solar system, so today will be a bittersweet day for many of us.

“Onboard the Philae lander was the Ptolemy Instrument, developed at The Open University and RAL Space in Harwell, which along with the COSAC instrument detected complex organic modules present on the comet surface.

“Rosetta is a fantastic example of how an array of science disciplines can work together to expand human knowledge, which can then be applied to change and save lives here on Earth.”

James King, an electronics engineer at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, based at the campus. said he remembered working on the Ptolemy Instrument in the 90s before it was used on the mission.

He said: “It is bittersweet to see it go but I think it is the best way, it would have been worse if we had just let it drift off into the atmosphere.

“You feel so proud to be a part of something so remarkable. I remember the feeling when we saw its launch and now to see it all come to an end, at least I’ve played my part in space history.”

Although the mission has concluded, it is estimated it will take scientists decades to analyse all the data gathered on the mission.