Rosetta and Philae: Captivating the Hearts and Minds of a Global Audience

66th International Astronautical Congress, Jerusalem, Israel. Copyright ©2015 by Design & Data GmbH. Published by the IAF, with permission and released to the IAF to publish in all forms.

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ROSETTA AND PHILAE: CAPTIVATING THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF A GLOBAL AUDIENCE

Sebastian D. Marcu

Design & Data GmbH, Germany, [email protected]

Ryan J. M. Laird Design & Data GmbH, Germany, [email protected]

In the final year leading up to Rosetta’s approach to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and subsequent

landing of Philae, an outreach campaign was initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA) using social media, participatory engagement and storytelling techniques as a means to reach out to the hearts and minds of a global audience. The comet-landing event received major global publicity unseen before for a space mission in recent times. ESA registered 4.3 billion page impressions on their Twitter channel. This mission proved a major success for ESA and Europe.

The crossmedia agency Design & Data GmbH contributed to ESA’s outreach campaign through the creation of a cartoon animation, which due to increasing demand turned into a whole series. This paper focuses on this cartoon series, which is believed to have been a key component for popularising the mission globally. The cartoon series was launched shortly before the #WakeUpRosetta event and continues to provide updates of the mission to this day. A survey conducted for this paper looks in detail at various aspects that we have identified as potential drivers for promoting the Rosetta mission with the cartoon series as its central component. A breakdown of the outreach strategies implemented for the Rosetta mission demonstrates their individual effect.

This paper is based on our first hand experience in working with ESA to promote the Rosetta & Philae mission. It concludes with a series of recommendations on how to successfully conduct outreach campaigns for future space exploration missions.

I. INTRODUCTION

The Rosetta mission forms part of the Horizon 2000 scientific programme. It is technically one of the most challenging missions that ESA and European industry has had to implement and conduct to this day. In our humble opinion we believe that the Rosetta mission can be considered the “Apollo” moment of our decade. It has not only enthralled the general public but as we have witnessed has also inspired artists and musicians from around the world to produce art works in response to this daring space mission.

The Rosetta mission consisted of the Rosetta orbiter and the Philae lander spacecraft. The names of the Rosetta and Philae spacecraft were chosen to reference the Rosetta stone, an ancient Egyptian stele, and the island of Philae, which played a key role in helping scientists to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Similarly the Rosetta mission was designed to help scientists uncover clues to the origins of our universe, which were believed to be contained within the surface of the comet.

The Rosetta mission launched on 2nd March 2004 and performed several gravity assist manoeuvres near Earth and once near Mars to accelerate the spacecraft through the inner solar system and correct the trajectory of the spacecraft so it could meet the comet outside the inner solar system. The aim was to meet

the comet before it would get to close to the sun, when the comet was still inactive, making it easier to land on its surface. During the 10-year journey to the comet (see Table 1), the Rosetta spacecraft flew past two asteroids and conducted additional scientific observations of these celestial bodies. From March 2011 until its wake up on the 20 January 2014, the Rosetta spacecraft was put in hibernation to conserve its energy while travelling through the outer solar system. The reason was because no experience existed on Earth of operating a solar-powered spacecraft beyond Mars.

In October 2013, shortly before the launch of the Rosetta spacecraft, Design & Data GmbH was approached by ESA with a request for several short films to promote the Rosetta mission. ESA was keen to create great content that could help to generate some attention for the Rosetta mission. With envy and admiration, we and our ESA colleagues had witnessed NASA’s Curiosity landing campaign and ideally wanted to achieve a similar result in terms of publicity. Despite the meagre budgets at our disposal we were keen to bring the best team effort together to create great communication products for ESA.

The brief contained various types of videos. One stuck out in particular as ESA requested to create a fairytale video around the theme of sleeping beauty. At the time we had gotten interested in cartoon


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animation, due to a new recruit to our team. We therefore proposed to ESA to depict the sleeping beauty fairy tale as a cartoon animation. The initial feedback we received was negative, because some scientists believed that space science could not be seriously depicted in a cartoon format. After providing initial still image impressions of our proposal, we managed to disperse the fears of the scientists.

Date Milestone 2 March 2004 Launch 4 March 2005 1st Earth flyby 25 February 2007 Mars flyby 13 November 2007 2nd Earth flyby 5 September 2008 Asteroid Steins flyby 13 November 2009 3rd Earth flyby 10 July 2010 Asteroid Lutetia flyby 8 June 2011 Enter deep space hibernation 20 December 2013 “Wake Up Rosetta!” cartoon published 20 January 2014 Exit deep space hibernation May-August 2014 Comet rendezvous manoeuvres 9 July 2014 “Are we there yet?” – competition trailer 21 July 2014 “Are we there yet?” – cartoon published 31 July 2014 “Fabulous fables and tales of tails” cartoon

published 6 August 2014 Arrival at comet 5 November 2014 “Preparing for comet landing” cartoon

published 12 November 2014 Philae landing 9 March 2015 “Comet landing” cartoon published 13 August 2015 Comet closest to the Sun 23 September 2015 Short compilation: Rosetta and Philae at

Schipol Airport 31 December 2015 Nominal mission end Table 1. Rosetta mission timeline together with cartoon release dates.

The design of the look and feel of the Rosetta

cartoon series featured the main characters Rosetta & Philae with simple expressions and arms. The blue tonality of the cartoons was inspired by deep space. In order to instill an emotional response in the viewer we concentrated on creating a handmade look as if everything had been drawn with watercolours on coarse paper. The texture of the deep space background also ensured that no visual boredom developed in our viewers. The overall focus was to concentrate on the story and provide humorous moments in the cartoon to depict the real technological and scientific challenges of the mission.

From the four videos that we produced for the #WakeUpRosetta campaign1 , the cartoon series was continued to provide updates for the various stages of the mission. In total 7 videos and several still images have been produced for planned (i.e. perihelion) and unplanned mission (i.e. Philae wake-up) events.

The release of the first video #WakeUpRosetta campaign video on the 2 December (see Fig. 1), marked clearly the beginning of the new campaign to

promote the Rosetta mission.2 The first cartoon animation for the Rosetta mission was released shortly before Christmas on the 20 December 2013. At this stage it was still unclear if the single Rosetta animation would become a series, as we had to wait for the successful wake up of the spacecraft, which dictated the progress in terms of communicating the next stages of the mission. This was the same for all the critical stages of the mission. The campaign with the cartoon series was not planned ahead but new episodes were added as the mission progressed. The evolution of the social media followership graph on Twitter clearly demonstrates how each mission event resulted in a significant jump in followership. For each of these events a minimum of one cartoon was released in conjunction with other campaign events such as competitions and giveaways. The following productions constituted the elements released with the Rosetta and Philae cartoon characters.

Fig. 1. #WakeUpRosetta campaign image with alarm clock. Credit: ESA.

Fig. 2. Animated poster for the #WakeUpRosetta campaign. Credit: ESA. I. I. #WakeUpRosetta

On 20 January 2014, Rosetta’s internal alarm clock woke up the spacecraft. On one of the most exciting moments for Rosetta scientists and mission operators on Earth, the spacecraft calls back home confirming everything is working fine and that it has survived the most distant part of its journey. The video released under the #WakeUpRosetta Twitter


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hashtag summarised the past 10 years of the mission and raised awareness for the approaching reawakening of the spacecraft. Accompanying the campaign ESA initiated a competition where the general public could submit a video to help wake up Rosetta. The campaign resulted in over 200 video submissions from around the world. Some of these videos visually referenced the Rosetta cartoons.3

I. II. #RosettaAreWeThereYet

On 6 August 2014, Rosetta rendezvoused with the comet, which was now only 100 km away from the spacecraft. In the run-up to this event three more videos were released under the Twitter hashtag #RosettaAreWeThereYet. The three videos consisted of a trailer playing on the typical question “Are we there yet?” often asked by children when travelling. In this video Philae was asking the question.

Another video called “#RosettaAreWeThereYet – Fabulous fables and tales of tails” provided a historical overview of past comet missions with a particular focus on Giotto. The final video of this series called “#RosettaAreWeThereYet - Once upon a time...” provided a preview of what to expect from now until the comet-landing event. Accompanying the #RosettaAreWeThereYet campaign ESA launched another competition, where the public was invited to submit photos of themselves travelling to reach any kind of destination. In addition a Rosetta paper cutout model was released as a give-away item. Interestingly this paper cutout model featured in many of the submissions entered during the competition. The pictures submitted for the competition generated over 23 000 votes.4

Fig. 3. Philae checks with Rosetta that they are prepared for separation. Credit: ESA.

I. III. #CometLanding

On 12 November 2014 the Philae lander was released by the Rosetta spacecraft and touched down on the comet: a first in the history of space exploration.5 Landing on a comet, a tiny low-gravity celestial body, moving at a speed of several tens of thousand km/h, was never achieved before.

Shortly before the comet-landing event, ESA released two videos. One was the highly acclaimed “Ambition” film6,7 on 24 October 2014 and the #CometLanding cartoon video on the 5 November 2014. Both of these films received a lot of attention on the Internet. The #CometLanding cartoon reached over 600 000 views in the time up until the comet landing event. ESA’s Twitter channel recorded over 4.3 billion page impressions during the landing event and media around the world reported live from ESA Operations in Darmstadt as the drama of Rosetta and Philae unfolded that night.

Fig. 4. Philae prepares for landing on comet 67P. Credit: ESA.

While the Rosetta mission used several different means to raise awareness, the cartoon series became the leitmotif of the mission with Twitter bringing the characters to life with human-like emotions. Images of Rosetta and Philae replaced profile pictures on Twitter and Facebook for people that considered themselves fans of the mission.

In addition people used the paper cut out model of Rosetta and Philae to decorate their Christmas tree or homes and others were so inspired that they produced Origami versions8, fingernail designs9, cakes10,11 and ceramic12 with the images of the Rosetta and Philae cartoon characters. Judging by the effect the mission had on audiences worldwide, it seems that the Rosetta mission reached a kind of cult status. But what has caused this effect on the general public?

II. BACKGROUND This paper attempts to find answers to why the

Rosetta mission campaign proved so successful by following up various leads that we have gathered from colleagues and peers. It seeks to analyse the key content elements of the Rosetta outreach campaign and how its success was achieved. We look at the use of social media, participatory engagement and story-telling techniques used in the campaign, initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA) to reach out to the hearts and minds of a global audience. We believe the effect of empathy was heightened by the human-like


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tweets that reflected the anthropomorphised characters of Rosetta and Philae. What we believe is missing however is the full range of expressions and the bringing to life of these characters through another medium such as Twitter. We research the use of anthropomorphism in culture and consider how empathy may have played a large part in the campaign. Storytelling and to some extent transmedia storytelling seem to have also played a role in building bridges between the highly scientific nature of the mission and the laymen general public.

II. I. Anthropomorphism When we look at anthropomorphism

scientifically, it is described as attributing human-like emotional states.1 Charles Darwin (1872)13 argued that anthropomorphism is essential to progress in understanding other animals; and that we use our existing knowledge structure to describe and understand something non-human. White (1959)14 describes this effect as “effectance motivation”, where we are motivated by the "tendency to explore and influence one’s environment." 15,16 From the dawn of human time, we have asked “How did we get here?” and “Why are we here?” Such big questions often revert to the spiritual.

There is also a basic human need to affiliate with others, as we require a form of social grouping or relational connection.17 Research on humans’ perception of pets18,19 and possessions20,21 show that humans easily attribute human-like characteristics to non-human items. Epley et al. (2007, 2008) bring the ideas of effectance motivation and sociality motivation together with “elicited agent knowledge”, the accessibility and applicability of anthropocentric knowledge, in ‘A Three-Factor Theory of Anthropomorphism’.22,23

There are countless examples where anthropomorphism has been used with animals where they have been given human-like characteristics in a range of literature and cartoons. The folktale ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’24 describes ingenuity and trickery used by the Tortoise to overcome his stronger opponent, the Hare. George Orwell’s Animal Farm25 makes use of the animal characters as he reflects on political issues in his dystopian novella. Often storytellers, such as Orwell, dramatise humanity’s continual struggle with the forces of nature.26 Some scientists think that such a depiction of animals as humans (for example wearing clothes and engaging in human-like activities) could lead children to adopt a human-centred view of the natural world.27,28,29 Ganea et al. (2014) argue that the effect such anthropomorphism could in fact have a negative effect on children’s learning on their conceptual knowledge of animals.30 On the other hand, it is

considered to have great potential to aid conservation efforts; “anthropomorphism should be encouraged when appropriate”.31

“The human instinct to anthropomorphise does not confine itself to cute animals, as anyone who has seen the film Wall-E can testify.” 32,33 We see also how in modern literature how faces have been added to non-animal objects in cartoons such as Thomas the Tank Engine34, Budgie the Little Helicopter35 and the Pixar films, Cars36 and Wall-E37. The Wizard of Oz (1939)38 makes use of fantasy story-telling, a musical score and unusual characters: Scarecrow who wants a brain, Tin Woodman who desires a heart, as well as the Cowardly Lion in need of courage. We should however be wary of the usage of inanimate objects in the use of anthropomorphism. Over 40 years ago, a Japanese robotics professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology wrote about how the “descent into eeriness” he calls the “The Uncanny Valley”, 39 where he hypothesised that a person’s response to a human-like robot or computer-generated figure would dramatically shift to unease, the more lifelike it becomes. In the case of the Rosetta cartoons, entering the Uncanny Valley would go against what we set out to achieve. As a small team we wanted to produce something simple and not so lifelike. The expressions of the characters were kept fairly basic to emphasise the handmade look and feel of the cartoon series. Such designs of the cartoon characters give them uniqueness and make them appear more amenable as they invoke a human reaction to the audience. But how does anthropomorphism play a role in building a relationship with the Rosetta and Philae characters?

The Rosetta and Philae cartoon series used anthropomorphism to move away from how space missions are usually communicated. The emphasis is often focused on the high quality engineered spacecraft. The general public often cannot distinguish the difference between an Earth Observation satellite and an exploration spacecraft like Rosetta. Even the successful NASA Curiosity mission campaign highlighted the technology more than the emotional response to the adventure.

The Rosetta cartoons attempted to focus on the emotional states that an adventure of this scale i.e. travelling ten years through the solar system to meet a comet, would instill in the spacecraft if they were human-like. The general public appeared to be able to connect with the anthropomorphic spacecraft as they were travelling on our behalf to the distant world of the comet. If the same effect could have been achieved just by showing animated 3D models of the spacecraft is questionable and forms part of our on-going research in this topic.

Nonetheless, it seems that the general public’s identification with the two protagonists of the mission


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draws on elements of storytelling, which was our next lead.

II. II. Storytelling When analysing the characters of Rosetta and

Philae, we can consider them classic monomyth heroes.40 The depiction of their adventure and their human like reaction to events such as meeting the giant asteroid Lutetia or seeing the surreal landscapes of the comet lets the audience identify themselves with their adventure. As in classic tales the two heroes Rosetta and Philae need to overcome obstacles, high and low points in their mission to reach their final goal - land Philae safely on the comet.

When we consider the real threats posed by various events during the Rosetta mission, then we can clearly identify these as conflicts with high and low points, which are good drivers for a story of this kind. No one wants to witness stories where all is always working fine, as interest quickly subsides.41 The success of space exploration missions goes hand in hand with risk. While engineers regard risk as something negative, storytellers see risk as a source for conflict and therefore as something positive to advance the story of the mission and strengthen the character of the protagonists.

Communication of past space missions often documented progress in a third person view offering facts delivered as dry information. The cartoon allowed the communication to take a first person view and talk about the drama involved in reaching the various mission goals. Interestingly we still needed a means to blur the lines between the fictional cartoon characters and the real spacecraft. In order to achieve that transmedia storytelling comes into play.

II. III. Transmedia Henry Jenkins presented the idea of Transmedia

Storytelling for the first time in 2003 in the MIT Technology Review magazine43 The idea can be defined as a story that unfolds across multiple media outlets and platforms, and in which a portion of the end users take an active role in the process of expansion. He describes this as “a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels”.

Potential audiences around the world are confronted with increasing amounts of data and information as well as means to access this information. As a result organisations like ESA are faced with a greater challenge to produce and distribute engaging content for their various target audiences. ESA therefore stands in direct competition with the daily media output produced by other organisations and companies. To engage an audience

requires understanding how and when to connect with them. Truly understanding engagement is essential. Malthouse and Peck propose that engagement is the collection of experiences that readers, viewers, or visitors have with a media brand.44 Experiences are the bridges that connect the general public with media or a brand and enable engagement.

Hollywood increasingly makes use of experiences through transmedia storytelling by blurring the lines between real and fictional worlds. An example was the marketing campaign for the horror TV series “True Blood”, where a synthetic blood fizzy drink allows Vampires to live freely among humans. The commercial release of this fizzy drink with an associated media campaign, made the public question if Vampires really live amongst us. In terms of marketing the TV series it was a huge success.45

As part of this public awareness campaign, ESA did not promote any fizzy drinks called “Comet water”. Instead the focus lay on promoting the mission through competitions to involve the public. In addition the cartoon’s empathy level were emphasised through the live Twitter conversations between Rosetta and Philae, which provided the link to the real world. Coupled with the coordinated release of the images and science from the Rosetta mission it enabled the general public to feel close to the adventure lived out by the two spacecraft. What worked nicely is that each medium indirectly linked to each other i.e. the cartoon drew attention to the landing event, while the Twitter conversation brought the characters alive and the release of their images gave them scientific credibility. Science is ultimately a human endeavour and no mission previously has demonstrated this so effectively as the Rosetta mission.

II. IV. Media use in space missions We find various examples of how different forms

of media have been used in promotion of space missions and how Twitter, in particular, has been used to add a personality to a spacecraft, for example: NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover, Voyager, Dawn, Juno, New Horizons and MESSENGER.46,47,48

About half an hour before the MESSENGER orbiter crashed on Mercury it said farewell to the world:

“Well I guess it is time to say goodbye to all my friends, family, support team. I will be making my final impact very soon.”

China's first lunar rover, Yutu (“Jade Rabbit”) also live-blogged its own death on the Chinese version of Twitter (Weibo)49. There are also references to how China’s first space docking, of Tiangong 1 module with the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, inspired love poetry:50


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"Tiangong, my lover, for the arrival of this moment -- wait for me. I'm coming," reads a poem called "Lovers' Talk," published in Tianfu Zaobao, a Sichuan-based daily, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

"If we compare the space docking mission with the pact of a pair of lovers deeply in love, it will be the most romantic story of the season."

One noteworthy radio broadcast is where a five-year old boy asked Canadian Astronaut "What happens if it [Voyager] runs into a planet?.”51 Hadfield humanised the spacecraft and said the real question is “Is Voyager happy or not? Is Voyager a happy machine or a sad machine?" which Hadfield used to explain to the boy how machines like to do what they are built for. “Voyager is so happy. It’s the bravest satellite of all. It has gone the furthest...It’s not lonely because it is talking to us….It tells us about all the wonderful things it is seeing.” Hadfield also compares Voyager to his time on the International Space Station “…Like when I was living up on the spaceship, I didn’t spend all my time worrying about things breaking down or myself getting sick. I was so thrilled and excited to see new things and do something I thought was really important and to be able to tell people about it.”

Much of this use of anthropomorphising spacecraft has been limited in scope to a single medium. Our research suggests that Rosetta was the first such mission that tapped into the use of transmedia; making use of not only a medium such as Twitter but also using cartoon characters, plush toys and storytelling.

III. METHODOLOGY

From our research we sought to establish key metrics and conduct research measuring the success of the Rosetta campaign through an online survey conducted with the Google Survey tools. We sought to analyse the key drivers of the campaign through its use of social media and the Rosetta and Philae cartoon characters.

III. I. Measuring Empathy We decided to look at ways of measuring empathy

and how the public perceived the Rosetta cartoon characters. Among the scientific community it seems that “empirical measurement [of empathy] has proved difficult”.52 Davis (1983) defines empathy as reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of another.52

Questionnaires are generally used to assess empathy on various scales. Hogan (1969) focuses more on the cognitive side of empathy54, whereas Mehrabian and Epstein (1972) consider emotional responses described as “affective empathy”.55,56 Some

others suggest this may in fact measure general emotional arousability instead .

Davis (1980, 1983) considered a mixed “multidimensional approach” as he sought to measure individual differences in empathy in his Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). It lists 28 questions relating to empathy with four sub-scales: Empathic Concern (EC), Perspective Taking (PT), Personal Distress (PD) and Fantasy Scale (FS).57

Later, Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright (2004) go further to explicitly design an “Empathy Quotient (EQ)” 58 designed to measure empathy in adults, which Lawrence et al. (2004) test in terms of its reliability and validity and conclude it has a reliable scale and that its different sub-scales may have clinical applications.

For the purposes of the Rosetta and Philae cartoons we considered the IRI the most appropriate. We are not looking into clinical applications but wanted a simple measure of empathy to determine the effectiveness of the characters in this manner. It was considered that the subscales of the IRI could relate well to the storyline of the cartoons, for example: empathic concern for the wellbeing of the spacecraft, the perspective of our audience by relating to the spacecraft, the feeling of distress for the Philae lander as ESA lost contact and the fantasy element of the fictional characters.

We took selected questions from the IRI questionnaire in each of the sub-scales and decided to compare these in both a general sense how people usually empathise with characters in e.g. a novel, to how they empathised with the Rosetta and Philae cartoon characters. We also wanted to ask some of our general questions about whether people wanted such cartoons to continue and what they’d like to see more of.

IV. RESULTS We analyse both the results from our survey, which looked at the effect of empathy the Rosetta and Philae characters generated amongst audiences and the effectiveness of the social media campaign. IV. I. Survey Results

We shared the Google survey link through the Design & Data website, as well as our social media and various e-mail lists. A total of 321 people responded, 53% male and 47% female from a mix of ages. We realised a large proportion come from a science-related background. Many unsurprisingly were space enthusiasts, some from a space-related background. We present the full results in the appendix.

We consider the subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) in relation to the survey:


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Empathic Concern (EC), Perspective Taking (PT), Personal Distress (PD) and Fantasy Scale (FS).

Participants on the whole really got involved with the characters in the video series and on social media (PT). They could easily put themselves in the place of the characters through either form of media (FS). In fact, there was very little difference when comparing the two. Many could picture themselves at the comet when they saw the first pictures coming through from Rosetta (PS).

When we look at how the respondents generally get involved with the feelings of characters e.g. in a novel, it seems that there was little difficulty in how they perceived the cartoon characters (FS). They could understand well the interactivity between Rosetta & Philae. Most agreed that the key mission highlights were explained well in the video series. One respondent commented: “My son was 2 years old when Philae landed and can account for all that happened.”

Many agreed that cartoon characters helped bring the Rosetta mission to life and commented how they would like to see more of the cartoon characters. Most liked how the videos were accessible to the general public as well as young children. One respondent commented, “This really showed how space missions can be brought to life through characters and social media, especially for young people but not exclusively.” Some suggested how these, for example, “could be incorporated into widely known web comics, such as Oatmeal, XKCD...”

Some expressed how they have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than themselves (EC). Most also feel sorry for other people when they have problems and don’t find it so difficult to see things from the other person’s point of view (EC). Most people also felt some level of emotion for Philae when ESA lost contact with the lander (PD).

Overwhelmingly, most people would like to see the adventures of Rosetta and Philae to continue. Many felt both sad that the mission is coming to an end but proud of its accomplishments. Some suggested how we could follow Rosetta further into space. IV. II. Use of Social Media

In the interest of space, many will remember Canadian astronaut, Commander Chris Hadfield’s version of “Space Oddity” recorded on board the International Space Station.59 German ESA astronaut, Alexander Gerst also recently stunned many with his amazing photographs on his Blue Dot mission.60

Likewise, Italian ESA astronaut, Samantha Cristoferetti shared her ISS journey and amassed nearly 600 000 followers on Twitter.61 Astronauts in

particular have a great appeal as we try to share in their human story but what about the appeal to spacecraft?

Public engagement initiatives can lead to long-term public support of science. 64 The Hubble Space Telescope has been a fantastic tool for public engagement in the many photographs it has sent back to Earth.63 When NASA announced in 2004 that the space shuttle mission scheduled for 2006 to extend Hubble’s life until about 2010 would no longer take place there was a huge public outcry to save it.64 The Twitter handle @NASA_Hubble to date (24 September 2015) has over 229 000 followers, which regularly shares the telescope’s magnificent images. In comparison, @ESA_Rosetta now has over 354 000 followers. How did the Rosetta mission become so popular?

Fig. 5. Twitter follower growth count

@ESA_Rosetta. Credit: ESA. Note the significant increases in followers for the #WakeUpRosetta (January 2014), #RosettaAreWeThereYet (6 August 2014) and #cometlanding (12 November 2014) events.

When we consider the main two social media campaigns, #rosettawakeup and #cometlanding, both events were hugely received worldwide. Between 11-17 November 2014, the #cometlanding hashtag in particular generated over 804 000 tweets and 4.3 billion timeline deliveries with over 339 000 contributors and a 910 million reach (see ).65 The mission was tweeted by, not only space agencies

66,67,68,69 and astronauts70,71 but also politicians72,73,74 and senior figures, as well as celebrities.75,76,77,78

When we look at the interaction between Rosetta and Philae in these tweets we see how effective the humanisation was.79,80,81,82,83,84 We recall this here:

ROSETTA: “OK @Philae2014, I’m getting lined up

with #67P, are you ready to jump? #CometLanding”

PHILAE: “Ready when you are, @ESA_Rosetta. Give me a little nudge? #cometlanding”

ROSETTA: “Standby for separation @philae2014… #CometLanding”


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Once Philae had separated from Rosetta after their

decade-long journey, the lander described how it felt.

ROSETTA:“How are you feeling @philae2014? #CometLanding”

PHILAE: “.@ESA_Rosetta WOW! I feel like I’m floating! And #67P is closer and closer…. #CometLanding”

ROSETTA: “.@Philae2014 :) My back is chilly now you’ve left, but I’m in a better position to watch you now. Send me a postcard! #CometLanding”

Philae then sent a postcard to Rosetta and the world (see ).

Fig. 6. Postcard from Philae. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA PHILAE: “Hey @ESA_Rosetta, did you get my first

postcard? CIVA took the image. Guess who’s in it?”

ROSETTA: “.@philae2014’s first postcard just after separation – it’s of me! #CometLanding Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA” (7000 retweets).

PHILAE: “Nice one! I’ve never seen you from this angle before, @ESA_Rosetta! #CometLanding” https://twitter.com/Philae2014/status/532539528721231872

ROSETTA: “I see you too @philae2014! Here you are in my OSIRIS camera - legs out! #CometLanding http://t.co/hmnfe2AkN2”

Fig. 7. Philae lander as taken from Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA ESA OPERATIONS: "RECEIPT OF SIGNAL FROM

SURFACE European Space Agency receiving signals from @Philae2014 on surface of comet #67P/CG #cometlanding"

This tweet received over 7600 retweets and 28.8

million potential impressions, in comparison the tweet from the Philae Lander:

PHILAE: “Touchdown! My new address 67P!

#cometlanding", which received over 34 000 retweets. The lander became potentially lost for some time

and created some drama as it came to rest in a shady spot on the surface of the comet without enough sunlight to keep it powered. It ‘fell asleep’ after about 60 hours of operation:

PHILAE: "Hello @ESA_Rosetta! I'm awake! How

long have I been asleep? #Lifeonacomet," came the tweet from Philae's handle.

ROSETTA: "Hello @Philae2014! You've had a long sleep, about 7 months!" responded Rosetta.

PHILAE: "Wow @ESA_Rosetta! That's a long time... time for me to get back to work! #Lifeonacomet"

ROSETTA: "@Philae2014 Need to check you're fit, healthy and warm enough first @philae2014! Take it easy for now :)"

PHILAE: "Oh, OK @ESA_Rosetta! I'm still a bit tired anyway... talk to you later! Back to #lifeonacomet!"

Interestingly, comments about the costs for the

Rosetta mission were not raised, despite the fact that the Philae lander did not function as intended. Comments about space mission costs are often raised by the media and the general public when things go wrong. In the instance of the Rosetta mission, it seemed that concern for the health of the Philae spacecraft dominated public opinion over concerns about the cost of this mission. We attribute this to the


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feeling of empathy that was achieved by the means stated above.

Fig. 8. Philae wakes up. Credit: ESA.

IV. V. Problems with the survey We tried to reach out to wider audience but we

recognise that the participants of the survey were mostly already science or space enthusiasts. We therefore believe there is a bias in the results that does not fully reflect the reasons for the success of communicating the mission. We could have also asked more questions from the IRI and sought to look in more depth at the different dimensions of empathy the characters generated. We were concerned that respondents would be put off by too many questions. As a simple measure, however, we believe our questionnaire gives a good indication into how the general public perceived the cartoon characters.

We are trying to understand something unplanned and why the outreach campaign was so successful. As we look deeper beyond anthropomorphism and empathy, we consider elements of mission planning with storytelling in mind, the number, look and feel of the characters, as well as engagement through further use of transmedia. We would seek to build on these elements as we seek a model towards public engagement activities for space missions beyond Rosetta.

VI. CONCLUSIONS Space exploration missions are typically very

expensive and do not always have the full support of the general public. Such scientific endeavours are often seen as a waste of time, money and resources. In comparison to Earth Observation, Navigation and Telecommunication satellites, Space exploration missions do not offer a tangible monetary return on investment and therefore are harder to sell to the general public. It is therefore even more essential to engage target audiences on an experience level by letting them become part of the adventure. The experience of adventure can be best communicated on an empathy level by bringing in human factors.

The Rosetta mission has not fully tapped into the full potential of this type of communication. In order

to achieve that ESA and other space organisations may wish to consider the following recommendations:

1. Mission planning with storytelling in mind We believe that space exploration missions would

benefit from the involvement of a communications expert or a storytelling engineer. The aim is to provide inputs already at the mission planning stage possibly in a concurrent design facility. While the spacecraft undergoes changes as each subsystem is discussed, the storytelling engineer who may sit closely to the client can provide inputs as to how each subsystem may contribute to engaging the general public during the different stages of the mission. Communication is therefore not something that happens at the end when the mission is launched, but becomes part of the whole planning and development process to build not only a spacecraft but a whole space exploration mission brand with a mission statement and a script with potential conflict points i.e. risk points that need to be overcome. Talking about the risks openly will bring in the human dimension into the mission. The Rosetta mission was not planned this way, but we believe an early involvement of a communication expert will provide valuable inputs for selling the mission to the general public.

2. Creating empathy through anthropomorphism Space is mostly portrayed through lifeless

spacecraft and barren planets. Looking at a perfectly engineered spacecraft does not instill any emotion on the laymen general public. Nor does it immediately instill a desire in our youth to go and pursue engineering as a career choice or feel passionate about STEM education. As demonstrated in the Rosetta mission, anthropomorphism helped break down the barriers that existed thus far between the general public and space exploration missions. Concern for Philae was felt everywhere, and no one seemed to question the high costs of this mission. It is therefore evident that anthropomorphism managed to bring the spacecraft closer to us, by enabling the public to connect with the characters on an empathy scale. On their own, the lifelike Twitter conversations between Rosetta and Philae may not have been enough to instill this feeling of closeness to our two space mission heroes. In our opinion it may have created the “Uncanny Valley” effect described above, whereby eeriness would prevail over the fact that an inanimate spacecraft distills such human-like traits, which it visibly does not have. The cartoon is therefore an essential communication tool for building an empathic connection with the spacecraft.


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3. Number of characters Storytelling requires protagonists. The right

choice of protagonists may result in diverse types of stories to be told. In the case of Rosetta and Philae we had two protagonists that complemented each other quite easily. The story to be told was a classic road trip story into the depths of our universe. In other space exploration missions, we may not have other protagonists but the main spacecraft. However a story lives from conflict and interaction to resolve these conflicts. It is therefore good to have at least two protagonists in the story. If no second spacecraft is available, then instrument payloads may be used as protagonists to develop lovable characters for which the general public can feel empathy.

4. Look and feel of characters From our experience with Rosetta and Philae we

wanted to create a handmade look so that people feel visually attached to the animations. It should instill a feeling of preciousness in the viewer. By no means were we trying to create realistic looking characters to avoid problems that instill a feeling of eeriness i.e. “Uncanny Valley” in the viewer. We also recommend that the communications team of a space mission spends time developing loveable and memorable characters to represent their spacecraft, characters that the public will enjoy engaging with. Character design encompasses thinking about how to make characters distinctive, which link qualities to use to describe the characters visually, choosing colours and the range of facial expressions.85

5. Creating engagement through transmedia storytelling

In order to identify with a space exploration mission it is essential to build bridges to the general public. The public needs to live the adventure and feel as if they are part of the adventure. In the case of the Rosetta mission, the general public felt empathetically connected with the cartoon characters that really came alive through the conversations between Rosetta and Philae on Twitter and when images were released during these discussions. Participation through competitions is nice, but they do not add directly to the feeling of being personally connected to the mission.

An unexplored avenue for creating engagement at a much larger scale would have been to find branding partners for the mission and to create connections in everyday life through the mission. Taking the True Blood example, ESA could have found commercial partners for the mission such as a drinks company to create a “Comet water” fizzy drink to promote the mission. Such partnerships are generally not encouraged by public science organisations such as ESA and NASA. However in a time when communication budgets are being cut, it is important to reconsider if such partnerships do not offer greater benefits and more potential for reaching out to the general public and engaging them with the space exploration mission brand. This would enable a space mission to benefit from the full potential of transmedia storytelling to captivate and engage the general public.

__________________________

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VII. APPENDIX

VII. I. Diversity of survey

Fig. 9. Diversity of survey respondents - a) Gender. Male (53.1%), female (46.9%). b) Age. Under 18 (2.1%), 18-25 (19.6%), 25-35 (44.1%), 35-50 (22.4%), 50-65 (11.2%), 65+ (0.7%).

VII. I. Empathy for the Rosetta & Philae Cartoon Characters

Fig. 10. “I could understand well the interactivity between Rosetta & Philae.” Does not describe me well - 1 (1.6%), 2 (0.9%), 3 (5.3%), 4 (31.9%), 5 (60.3%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 11. “I felt sorry for Philae when ESA lost contact with the lander.” Does not describe me well - 1 (2.2%), 2 (3.4%), 3 (10.9%), 4 (30.3%), 5 (53.1%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 12. “I could understand well the interactivity between Rosetta & Philae.” Does not describe me well - 1 (8.1%), 2 (7.5%), 3 (22.2%), 4 (25.3%), 5 (36.9%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 13. “I really got involved with the characters on social media.” Does not describe me well - 1 (8.4%), 2 (10.3%), 3 (19.1%), 4 (27.5%), 5 (34.7%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 14. “When I watched the cartoons, I could put myself in their place.” Does not describe me well - 1 (7.8%), 2 (10.6%), 3 (23.8%), 4 (31.3%), 5 (26.6%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 15. “When I watched the cartoons and saw the interactivity on social media, I could put myself in their place.” Does not describe me well - 1 (7.2%), 2


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(11.9%), 3 (22.8%), 4 (31.9%), 5 (26.3%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 16. “When I saw the first pictures coming through from Rosetta, I could picture myself at the comet.” Does not describe me well - 1 (4.7%), 2 (7.2%), 3 (16.3%), 4 (27.8%), 5 (44.1%) - describes me very well.

VII. II. Empathy in General

Fig. 17. “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” Does not describe me well - 1 (0.9%), 2 (3.4%), 3 (19.1%), 4 (44.1%), 5 (32.5%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 18. “When I watch a good film, I can very easily put myself in the place of a leading character.” Does not describe me well - 1 (1.6%), 2 (5.9%), 3 (25.3%), 4 (40%), 5 (27.2%) - describes me very well.

Fig. 19. “I really get involved with the feels of the

characters in a novel.” Does not describe me well - 1 (1.3%), 2 (3.8%), 3 (17.5%), 4 (37.5%), 5 (40%) - describes me very well.

VII. III. General questions about the Rosetta and

Philae characters

Fig. 20. “The key mission highlights were explained well in the video series.” Strongly disagree - 1 (0.6%), 2 (0.9%), 3 (13.8%), 4 (37.2%), 5 (47.5%) - strongly agree.

Fig. 21. “The cartoon characters helped bring the Rosetta mission to life.” Strongly disagree - 1 (0.6%), 2 (1.3%), 3 (12.8%), 4 (22.2%), 5 (63.1%) - strongly agree.

Fig. 22. “How do you feel now the mission is coming to an end?” Happy (31.9%), sad (55.6%), excited (32.5%), annoyed (0.9%), proud (65.9%), emotional (30%), disappointed (5%), frustrated (3.8%), pleased (25%), other (6.9%).


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Fig. 23, “Would you like to see the adventures of Rosetta & Philae continue?” No, not at all - 1 (1.9%), 2 (2.2%), 3 (9.1%), 4 (23.4%), 5 (63.4%) - Yes, very much.

VII. IV. Selected comments from survey

respondents “I would like to see more animations which are

friendly to all ages as I found the Rosetta and Philae animations to be engaging and fun whilst still informative, which was very good.”

“More of the same! The entire outreach side of the mission has been handled fantastically...It was a fascinating example of anthropomorphism used intentionally and successfully…”

“To be honest I think the entire wider public reaction is almost a throwback to the Apollo era, something that's been lost in the intervening years, and which space exploration desperately needs more of. We need people to be invested in it, and this did precisely that.“

“Cute cartoon stories that correctly capture the story, much like the Philae and Rosetta ones, that capture the interest of, and inspire young children, and adults!”

“The use of quasi-anthropomorphic characters is a brilliant way to reach an audience used to seeing emoticons, cartoons and video game characters. If only a little science bleeds through the most intellectually insulated of these potential "customers" for new ideas, then you have done a huge public service; and probably entertained millions as well. Job well done, and thank you.”

“The cartoons really helped to bring the mission to life for those not necessarily engaged with space exploration. Cartoons, but also the DIY-cardboard models and other related ESA merchandise, help to reach outside the space bubble. Would be great to see more space/STEM-related cartoons on public TV one day!”

“...Personalisation of mission into story telling animation characters! Well done whoever put this forward / made decision @ ESA.”

“More videos with cartoons that explain in an understandable way the objectives of the missions.“

“This campaign's level of accessibility - both of the purpose of the mission, and updates - is a good lesson for future campaigns. Space missions are still a wonder for most of the population, and a message that connects across ages and education levels makes us all feel like part of the mission, like the stars aren't quite so far away.”

“Similar awareness campaigns as with the Rosetta mission. The cartoons and the videos really gave the (robotic) mission a human touch that connected with everyone, not just people interested in science. It made the mission aware to a large public.”

“The level of information about the mission and the characterisation of Rosetta and Philae were outstanding, having this level of engagement in future missions would create a whole new layer of interest for me and my family.”