Rosetta Hunts For Comet Touch Down Site For Philae Lander

astroengine writes Attached to the European Space Agency's comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta, the Philae lander opened one of its robotic eyes when the mission was orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko at a distance of only 50 kilometers (31 miles) on Sunday. With two high-contrast exposures, the lander captured one of Rosetta's solar panels in the foreground with the comet behind. ESA says the choice of landing sites will be narrowed down from five to two on Monday -- a primary target and a backup -- before a final decision is made in October.

Comments

Re:Odd name

[i kan reed]

The lander is named after Philae Island in the Nile, where an obelisk was found that was used along with the Rosetta Stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Wikipedia.

So no. Instead, it's a "clever" tie-in to the overall mission name.

It's a fight between flight and science operations

[Anonymous Coward]

The lander has an expected design lifetime somewhere around 72 hours or so. Obviously they want to keep it alive for much longer than that, so that means putting it in a spot that gets a good balance between solar exposure and cooling efficiency. Unfortunately for the scientists, the flattest and most sun-exposed areas on "Cherry Garry" are also some of the most boring scientifically, relatively speaking.