Flow Communications

#CometLanding: a social media strategy that’s out of this world

17 November 2014 — Stuart Buchanan

Last week, a group of scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully performed an incredibly complex and ingenious manoeuvre that was a decade in the making, in an attempt to answer fundamental questions about the origins of life and the universe itself. For the first time in humanity’s history, we landed a robotic probe on a comet.

Rolis Descent Image
Moments before the first-ever comet landing. Photo courtesy of ESA/Rosetta/Philae/ROLIS/DLR

This was a momentous occasion for space exploration, and for a moment, it seemed as if the world was totally enraptured by it. But, unlike that moment in July 1969, when people sat in their living rooms, huddled around the television set awaiting the first glimpse of those grainy images of astronauts bouncing around the surface of the moon, last week's events played out differently.

While the Apollo missions may have been one small step for a man, and one giant leap for humankind, the Rosetta mission is one giant leap for a small robot, and in my opinion, a stellar example of modern science communication.

The media team at the ESA has been garnering public interest in the Rosetta mission ever since the probe came out of standby mode after 31 months of hibernation in deep space. Twitter has been the primary channel for doing this, with individual accounts created for each element of the mission. The "chatter" between these accounts has helped shape their character, and engage followers.

The ESA was certainly inspired by Nasa's Curiosity mission. Its video describing the "7 minutes of terror" that it took to land on Mars, and the subsequent popularity of the "first-person" tweets that Curiosity continues to send back (along with photos of the Martian surface) provide a good model for sparking public interest in space science, and making it accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Once Upon A Time Rosetta Are We There Yet
A series of videos, images and Twitter accounts have helped spread the word about ESA's Rosetta mission. Photo courtesy of ESA

Let me introduce you to the two main characters of this story: Rosetta, the probe that is in orbit around comet 67P (otherwise known as Churyumov–Gerasimenko), and Philae, the lander that hitched a ride there with Rosetta. Through Twitter handles, ESA's social media team has created two adorable characters whose dialogue is both fascinating from a scientific point of view, as well as endearing.

We've been anthropomorphising robots in popular culture for decades. They represent the best of humanity, and when we send them off to places we cannot venture, they become pioneers for our species. The ability to convey this in real time to the entire planet through Twitter has captured people's imaginations. We're not huddled around a TV in the living room – we're glued to our phones and our tablets, in between meetings, or on the bus, or lying in bed, awaiting the next message from a little robot clinging to the side of comet.

The mission took a dramatic turn on Friday evening when it became clear that the Philae lander wasn't receiving enough sun to power its solar cells, and thus unable to perform the vital experiments it had been sent to do. It was a race against time (and battery power) to get as much data back to Earth before the probe lost contact with us.

The drastic shortening of Philae's lifespan and the desperate hope that it had successfully performed all necessary experiments created a palpable tension for ESA scientists, as well as everyone on Twitter who was following the action on the #CometLanding hashtag. The social media team conveyed the sense of urgency that had gripped mission control, as well as the sense of elation when it appeared that the brave little robot had managed to soldier on until the end.

Philae came and went in less than a week, but the human touch that was given to the account brought real emotion to the events of Friday night, and moved people. This is the power of social media.

Philae

The social media team's ability to create a relatable character and tell a great story, while adapting to real-life crises and remaining accessible and up-to-date, is a good example of how to wield digital communication channels effectively.

There is still plenty more science to come out of the Rosetta mission, and things are expected to heat up again – literally – as the comet approaches the sun in August 2015. Twitter continues to be a powerful tool for communication, whether it's breaking news, uniting social activism, bringing down dictatorships or sharing groundbreaking scientific endeavours from the edge of human exploration.

comments powered by Disqus

Related articles