It's travelled four billion miles through space on an epic 10 year journey ...

And when the Philae Lander touched down on comet 67P last week as part of the Rosetta mission, a couple from Largs had special reason to celebrate.

Craig Clark, and wife Lynn (Nee MacPherson), co-owners of Clyde Space, a leading supplier of satellie and spacecraft systems, were overjoyed because their initals are written on the probe.

This came about after Craig was part of the company SSTL who worked on the probe's flywheel and he used a scalpel to inscribe the intitials on a electronic circuit board.

The couple now live in Glasgow, and Lynn is well known in Largs where she was Brisbane Queen from 1991.

Craig, who lives in Largs in the early 1990s, was called upon to help the Rosetta project at the eleventh hour.

He was one of three men at the company SSTL who designed, built and tested the flywheel that kept the lander stable during the descent and landing. The wheel had not been used for most of the 10 year journey through space, and needed to operate for a period of 20 hours during its dramatic arrival.

The 41 year old explained: “A few years ago I was working with another company and we basically had a visit from Stephan Ulamec, the manager of the DLR German space agency, who are responsible for the Rosetta mission. They were running out of budget and looking for a quick fix in terms of landing the Philae on the comet. They had something called a momentum wheel but when they tried to use it in the testing stage, it kept falling part, and we were asked to come up with something quickly. At that point, the whole project was in danger of being cancelled.

“We helped them out in putting the momentum wheel together, using a metal disc which could spin up to 5000 rpms, and by spinning at that certain speed, it added momentum, and helps give the lander stablisation, and stops it from tumbling, when releasing the lander from the main spacecraft.

“It basically kept the Philae lander stable, and without that disc it would have landed any old way on the comet, so it was really important that it worked.” And Craig was not downcast that the Philae lander was only able to function for a couple of days before being put into hiberation, and said: “It was amazing the whole amount of press it got with the landing and it shows how important it is for space agencies to keeping doing the whole thing, and to push the boundaries.” Craig revealed: “I put my wife and I’s initials on the flywheels of the Philae by incribring it with a scapel on to the circuit board which the electric controller is on. It is quite amazing - although maybe quite corny too!” After leaving Largs, the Clarks moved down to Surrey, and sold their house to set up Clyde Space, based in Glasgow, and currently live in Bearsden. Lynn has been head of finance at Clydespace and has now moved on to a business support role after playing a fundamental role in setting up the company. Craig’s mother was the late Betty Mackey who used to run St.Leonard’s Guest House in Largs.

And looking to the future, Craig told the ‘News’ that Clydespace is seeking funding to prepare for another exciting space exploration by sending a satellite to Jupiter’s moon Europa which is unique in our section of the solar system with methane rivers, in order to carry out further study.

The touchdown of the Philae lander ran into problems whent the lander bounced twice before landing in the shadow of a cliff - which means that the solar panels could only get limited sunlight. However, scientists are hope that Philae’s solar panels will eventually receive enough sunlight next spring.

A series of tests were carried out on the comet before it was put into hibernation, and scientists are currently waiting to analyse the results.

Professor Alec MacKinnon, who lectured on astronomy at Largs Museum in recent years, said: “As the world saw, the uncertain nature of the surface added to the challenge. It’s been a fantastic success! The European Space Agency scientists, and designers, deserve enormous respect and admiration for pulling this off.

“Comets are left-over specimens of the sort of bodies the planets formed from. The experiments carried out while the lander functioned will give us deep insights into the early Earth, and the role of comets in supplying water and possibly organic (i.e. carbon-bearing, not necessarily “alive”) molecules, ingredients of our planet that made it possible for living things like ourselves to emerge here.”