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Philae Lands Successfully On Comet

Posted by Soulskill on from the amazing-job-folks dept.

The European Space Agency has confirmed that the Philae probe has successfully landed on the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and established contact with headquarters. The harpoons have deployed and reeled in the slack, and the landing gear has retracted. (Edit: They're now saying the harpoons didn't fire after all.) There are no photos from the surface yet, but the Rosetta probe snapped this picture of Philae after initial separation, and Philae took this picture of Rosetta. Emily Lakdawalla has a timeline of the operation (cached). She notes that there was a problem with the gas thruster mounted on top of the lander. The purpose of the thruster was to keep the lander on the comet after landing, since there was a very real possibility that it could bounce off. (The comet's local gravity is only about 10^-3 m/s^2.) The pins that were supposed to puncture the wax seal on the jet were unable to do so for reasons unknown. Still, the jet did not seem to be necessary. The official ESA Rosetta site will be continually updating as more data comes back.

5 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Not bad. . . by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    for a government run operation.

    Congrats to everyone at ESA, especially to all the people behind the scenes you never get to see but whose contribution to this project cannot be overstated.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  2. Re:Hold on by zerosomething · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just saw people in the control room make hand motions that might indicate the lander bounced and drifted around a bit. Hopefully they are just speculating till they get better data.

    --
    It all starts at 0
  3. News coverage by johnw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Having checked a number of on-line news sites, the best real-time coverage seems to be on XKCD

  4. For the mathophobes... by Radical+Moderate · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Earth's gravity is roughly 10m/s^2, so the the comet's gravitational attraction is about ten thousand times weaker than ours. Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, and yes, I know "ten thousand times weaker" is crappy phrasing.

    --
    Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
  5. Re:Hold on by MyLongNickName · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now that I think about it, if Philae did not bounce off of the comet, then the screws must be doing their job and I would think the harpoons might not be needed at all. I would assume the harpoons were in the plans because the engineers couldn't be sure the screws would work on the surface of a comet.

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year