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Comet Probe Philae Unanchored But Stable — And Sending Back Images
An anonymous reader writes with an update to the successful landing of the ESA's comet probe Philae, which (as mentioned yesterday) had problems attaching to the surface of the comet's Rosetta: "BBC now reports that Philae is stable on the surface. Although no source claims so, we can all imagine a faint humming of 'Still Alive' coming from the probe." Not just stable, but sending pictures while it can. From the article: The probe left Rosetta with 60-plus hours of battery life, and will need at some point to charge up with its solar panels. But early reports indicate that in its present position, the robot is receiving only one-and-a-half hours of sunlight during every 12-hour rotation of the comet. This will not be enough to sustain operations. As a consequence, controllers here are discussing using one of Philae's deployable instruments to try to launch the probe upwards and away to a better location. But this would be a last-resort option.
New submitter Thanshin notes that the persistent Philae bounced a few times, and actually performed 3 landings, at 15:33, 17:26 & 17:33 UTC.Thanshin adds links to a handful of relevant Twitter feeds, if you want to follow in something close to real time: Philae2014; esa_rosetta; and Philae_MUPUS (MUlti PUrpose Sensor
One).
Why does every science-illiterate newsreader think that the most amazing part of the mission is that "the comet is moving at thousands of miles an hour?" This was amazing months ago, when Rosetta moved into its station-keeping formation with the comet. Right now, it is stationary with respect to Gerasimenko. What's incredible now is the deployment of Philae and its fight for survival in a totally unknown environment.
The problem is: we are talking about a design area of 1995 to 2002, with flight in 2004.
So, what we can do now, is all based on what we have learned.
All your ideas are valid and we will be better at it in the future.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Wait, you actually watched MSNBC? I didn't know people actually DID that...
Who said the mission would be a failure? They've landed on a comet and received lots of data from the lander already. Even if the mission is cut severely short, it sounds like a success to me.