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Philae's Batteries Have Drained; Comet Lander Sleeps
astroengine (1577233) writes "In the final hours, Philae's science team hurried to squeeze as much science out of the small lander as possible. But the deep sleep was inevitable, Rosetta's lander has slipped into hibernation after running its batteries dry. This may be the end of Philae's short and trailblazing mission on the surface of Comet 67P, but a huge amount of data — including data from a drilling operation that, apparently, was carried out despite concerns that Philae wasn't positioned correctly — was streamed to Rosetta mission control. "Prior to falling silent, the lander was able to transmit all science data gathered during the First Science Sequence," said Stephan Ulamec, Philae Lander Manager. "This machine performed magnificently under tough conditions, and we can be fully proud of the incredible scientific success Philae has delivered.""
3D printing and private space means that we'll soon have dozens, no, hundreds of private space probes out there searching for mineable asteroids and comets because there's just so much money to be made out there!
I think we're all more interested in the shirt drama than any of this science stuff!
While the main battery is nearly depleted and at this point there is not enough solar power striking the solar panels to boot it back up, as the comet approaches the sun the light intensity should go up. We can hope that the existing conditions provide enough power to prevent damage to the landers electronics. Then as the comet approaches the sun and the comet either changes origination to provide more light or just Philae get more intense light it may rise again. That would be grand!
So did they collect the data that tests for chiral amino acids? I assume that would be the mass spec?
I had to google "shirtstorm" to see what you're talking about... holy shit there is no hope left for society
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Because the scientists wear shirts featuring pin-up girls!"
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
The dark gray comet
The Philae sleeps tonight
woo-oo-OO-oo..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Electric Sleep?
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Google suggests SJW is "social justice warrior" which is apparently used as an insult.
Why do I have to learn this shit to follow things on a technical site instead of some far side of crazy teabagger site shoving politics in our faces?
Only if comets are balls of ice, like we used to think. Shooting off monster blasts of vaporized rock needs a lot more heat, so there's probably a chance to charge up the batteries before then :)
This may be the end of Philae’s short and trailblazing mission on the surface of Comet 67P, but a huge amount of data — including data from a drilling operation that, apparently, was carried out despite concerns that Philae wasn’t positioned correctly — was streamed to Rosetta mission control, potentially revolutionizing our understanding about the nature of comets.
And Rosetta will continue orbiting its comet as 67P drops closer to the sun, providing us with a unique and historic perspective on an icy body that could hold the secrets to the formation of our solar system.
I'm sorry, where does it say that the mission was a failure?
"No country for young men"
How much ado about nothing. This ladies will go insane at the hentai floors of the bookstores at Akihabara, and then buy a truckload of boylove manga.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Fifty-six hours after landing on the surface of a comet, Philae sent one more round of data about its new home across 310 million miles of space. Then, its power went out.
"@Rosetta, I'm feeling a bit tired, did you get all my data? I might take a nap..." read a message on the @philae2014 Twitter feed.
The Rosetta mission's twitter response: "You've done a great job Philae, something no spacecraft has ever done before."
All the experiments on board the lander had a chance to run and return information back to Earth. Philae's instruments scooped up material from the comet's surface, took its temperature, sent radio waves through its nucleus, and went hunting for hints of organic material. Cameras took the first panoramic images from the surface of a comet.
It has been a whirlwind ride for the lander, which was dropped onto the surface of the mountain-sized comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Wednesday morning. Two harpoons that were designed to tether it to the surface failed to fire, and scientists say the lander made two bounces before becoming stable. The first bounce caused the lander to go one-third of a mile into the air.
Friday morning, ESA officials expressed concern that the lander would not have enough battery power left to send back any more data from experiments it was conducting on its new, icy home.
When Philae landed on the comet on Wednesday, it had enough battery power for about 60 hours of work. Scientists initially hoped that it would continue to operate on solar power, but the lander seemed to have settled in a hole on the comet, where it was surrounded by rock-like structures that block the sun.
Stefan Ulamec, the lander manager from DLR, said the that one of the solar panels on the lander was getting about an hour and 20 minutes of sunlight a day. Two other panels got just 20 to 30 minutes a day, he said.
At a news conference Friday morning before the last signal was received, Ulamec said it was possible that scientists would not hear from the lander again.
"We are hoping to get contact again this evening, but it is not secured," he said. "Maybe the battery will be empty before it talks to us."
Happily, that turned out not to be the case. On Friday evening, ESA reported that all the science experiments had been deployed, and that the lander had been rotated 35 degrees in an attempt to get more sun on one of its larger solar panels.
There is a chance that as the comet flies closer to the sun, the increase in solar energy will allow ESA to communicate with Philae once again.
ESA officials say the odds of that happening are small, but with Philae, the little lander that could, anything is possible.
When you stop and think about the fact that the Rosetta project was launched over ten years ago (something I didn't realize until recently), it's hard not to feel sorry for the scientists and others on the project.
The statements the ESA is putting out have a positive spin on them (for multiple reasons, I'm sure), but at the end of the day this has got to be a pretty hard blow to the people personally invested in the project. After the effort required just to get it launched and a decade of waiting, it must be hard on them. Wish them the best of luck for a second chance when the comet nears the Sun.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Of course.. Something new to maintain that all important perpetual offense..
After all the trouble and expense of sending a probe or lander out into the unknown, it seems a waste not to provide them with an RTG for reliable power. Solar panels have hobbled Mars rovers as well as other spacecraft.
For he's a jolly good fellow,
For he's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us
And so say all of us, and so say all of us
For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good
For he's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us!
Since when is it bigoted for a guy to announce that he likes attractive women? Gay pride activists have whole fucking parades devoted to their preferences, and are always announcing it to the world.
On the other hand, in India you get raped on a bus ride.
Earth will get a ticket for dumping.
I have both sciences, feminist and general news sources in my regular news feed. I've seen much more stuff about sciences than about shirt. Maybe you should reconsider your sources of information and remove some of the "feminist are devil" sources from them.
Deep in space, in quiet space...the lander sleeps tonight...
Still hugely impressive, and it might still wake up eventually.
"social justice warrior" is only an insult when it comes from someone who think that the opposite, "asocial injustice coward" is a compliment.
What a spectacular list of two items!
Twitter #Gamergate
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
No tears it's with Spirit and the Vikings now.
Most people can think about more than one thing at a time. So in my head at the moment we have: It's an amazing achievement for the ESA and the team and for humanity at large. AND putting on that shirt was a bit thoughtless if he knew he was going to be on TV. AND if he didn't know he'd be asked to talk on TV and his bosses made him do it, that was a bit stupid on their part. AND if the TV people picked him to be on TV because of his shirt, that was pretty dickish of them.
See? You can think of more than one thing at a time and none of the other thing detract from the defining achievement of the mission. Unless you're a piss-baby who thinks your world is being ruined by SJWs. Then you can only keep one thing in your head at a time I guess.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Mission was projected to remain active until Dec 2015. Lander is dead on 2nd mission day. Yeah, huge success there. Come on leave PC out of it and call a spade a spade. OK some science was done but a roaring success it is not.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"how many ESA astronauts have been killed on the launch pad?"
"how many ESA shuttles have be lost?" Silly questions considering there have been zero ESA manned missions and zero ESA shuttles. Kind of like calling a plumber a successful neurosurgeon because he hasn't killed anyone on the operating table yet...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So sarcasm aside, it sounds like you're annoyed that people got diverted from talking about the science to discuss the politics of a shirt? In fact you were so concerned about the issue you decided to write a post diverting us from talking about the science to discuss the politics of discussing the politics of a shirt. After all, it's of dire importance we raise awareness about people trying to raise awareness about the shirt since none of the people complaining about it were kind enough to complain about it here first where we would be aware of it.
Well speech is free, and it's not like we can't discuss both issues (or all three issues?) And I am glad you care enough about justice in these kinds of social issues to fight for your beliefs!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
What you really want is a Nuclear Verne Gun.
Launch 3500 tonnes at escape velocity in a single shot. Enough to kickstart a lunar colony. All for roughly the same cost as a single 20 tonne-to-LEO conventional rocket launch.
Drill a 2-3km shaft into a salt dome, excavate a cavity at the bottom, suspend a 150kT nuclear warhead at the centre surrounded by a reaction mass, such as water laced with a neutron absorber. Above the cavity, at the bottom of the shaft, put a large shock absorber (such as a few hundred metres of oil backed by an ablative-coated pusher plate), with your 3500 tonnes of payload on top.
Most of the radiation would be contained underground, and a dome over the launch site would capture most of the rest.
If you want to launch into LEO, you can have a much larger payload, over 10,000 tonnes, but you'll need a conventionally rocket as a "chase ship" to grab it and circularise the orbit. Likewise you'll need an insertion and landing burns for a lunar payload, however you can use Orion-type nuclear propulsion once you're past the Van Allen belts. Launch your delicate payloads (like people) via more conventional means.
This would be an ideal way for China to leap decades ahead of every other space power in just one or two (somewhat controversial) Verne launches. 3500 tonnes would be enough payload for not only a lunar base, but enough fuel stockpiled in lunar orbit to power a LEO-LLO ferry for the conventionally launched humans (and delicate payloads.) Pretty much as soon as they have their proposed space station built, they have enough technology and capacity to take advantage of the Verne payload.
Note: 150kT keeps you under the cut-off for the nuclear test ban treaty. However, in an emergency (say, asteroid threat) a 20MT warhead would be able to launch over 200,000 tonnes (almost two Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Maybe they should have taken it one Mar at a time?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That's a possessive, not a plural. "Made it to Mar's" means "Made it to the place owned by Mar."
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Remember the Mar's Beagle?? The probe made it to Mar's, just to have a spectacular crash.
Beagle 2 was a lander, not a probe. The ESA's Mars probe it was carried on was Mars Express, which is still operating successfully after ten years orbiting Mars.
Remember the Cassini–Huygens mission??
The flaw was on Cassini (run by NASA), not Huygens (run by ESA) which performed perfectly even though it was landing on a completely unmapped world with an unknown surface. (Could be rock-hard ice, could be liquid ethane, could be some kind of organic sludge. Turned out to be sludgy liquid with a thin hard crust.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
The lander is dead, but the orbiter is still alive.
Sounds better/funnier if you imagine it read to you by Scott Manley. Too bad batteries are not recharging, but I bet ESA still managed to unlock som new goodies in their tech tree with all the science they got.
Too heavy though, the weight budgets for space are brutal.
Reading the pre mission discussions, they already knew that the geography of their target was going to be challenging, so I'm curious why they went with solar power (that requires some pretty consistent orientation data) instead of rtg's for Philae? It was further clear that once the comet started outgassing nobody has any clue how that thing is going is going to spin our tumble, an even better reason for rtgs.
Anyone know?
-Styopa
The lander is not dead, just batteries are empty. As the comet turns and tumbles Philae might see a sunrise and wake up. Just because you have never seen a sunrise on a comet doesn't mean there isn't one. Question is when.
Second out of how many? There are thousands of successful space projects that use solar.
Why does NASA's use of the term "science data" sound so weird to me? I mean, sure, it's data collected for scientific purposes, but the turn of phrase just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it sounds pretentious.
If people were not so afraid of radionuclides Philae would be awake.... for years.
It is amazing how ESA continues to have spectacular failures project after project. They manage to reach the target just to fail miserably due to lack of testing or by ignoring basic configurations.
I fail to see how "all the experiments on board the lander had a chance to run and return information back to Earth" (from LA times article) makes this mission a failure. Philae did everything they wanted it to do, the "charge battery and stay in contact" was just an optional extra.
Considering the official statement was that just LANDING there had only a 50:50 chance of succeeding, this whole thing was an incredible success.
Shhh! Do you think *he* knows that?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Mission was projected to remain active until Dec 2015
This is the expected end of mission for the orbiter. The instruments on the orbiter are considered far more critical to the goals of the mission and were expected to last much longer. "Very optimistic" expectations for the lander were a couple months at most. Just look at the instruments on the lander, and the vast majority of them were limited use, and would not be able to do anything beyond several days. And 2 of the three that could be used beyond that quickly get diminishing returns in the longer run.
This ain't even a joke. My "Boy Love" fanatic ex also thought it was okay to have videos of 12 year old boys showering and hugging inappropriately, all the while blaming anyone unfortunate enough to be male for starting at her nearly exposed breasts, and calling every regretful sexual encounter "rape". The feminist double standards have really gone too far, affected the minds of girls who are now young adults, and have begun to remove all safe spaces for men to be themselves. Speaking out against this gets you labelled as a misogynist without further discussion leaving many men without a voice, which is the actual definition of oppression.
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
I see you've ended your Intel boycott and can finally read things on the Internet again. Welcome back!
AND putting on that shirt was a bit thoughtless if he knew he was going to be on TV. AND if he didn't know he'd be asked to talk on TV and his bosses made him do it, that was a bit stupid on their part. AND if the TV people picked him to be on TV because of his shirt, that was pretty dickish of them.
Uh, wrong. It's a neat shirt that was a gift from his girlfriend. Why shouldn't he be allowed to wear things that his girlfriend picked out for him?
Unless you're a piss-baby who thinks your world is being ruined by SJWs.
Crap like this demonstrates exactly how the world is being destroyed by SJWs. Their whining is potentially going to be career ruining to a guy who's only crime is wearing a shirt that was given to him as a gift. A shirt. All because it hurt some SJW's feelings, because they can't stand the thought of people looking at pretty women.
Looks like a SNAP-19 RTG would have provided plenty of power and added 1.4 kg to the mass (when swapped for the existing power system).
Neil Armstrong flying over a boulder strewn crater and finding a suitable landing site on the fly vs. Philae happily flying into a hole.
I suppose the poor guy may have made a mistake but the nazimfems and their serfs that go after him and his shirt should be sent to uranium mine for their stupidity and lack of spirit and understanding for other humans, especially if those are equipped with rape toolkit formerly known as penis.
the statements about dead of the lander are slightly exaggerated. It may still wake up. What was the last time when your project delivered all you started it for, did it on time and possibly (as we do not know it yet) did not reach goals on ambition level? I would like project that I work on be as good as this one. But than I have the biggest evil in the whole universe to fight against: bean counters.
Actually, it's insult when used by people described as "cishet scum" by the SJW. "Cishet scum" means non-transgender heterosexuals. Anyone who isn't currently described as "discriminated" is scum. According to SJW if you're white male, with male identity and not homosexual, you are pretty much the worst blight of this earth.
The core of the SJW legion is female supremacists - the kind of extremist feminists who are absolutely not satisfied by the idea of equality of genders, claiming e.g. that all men are supporters of the rape culture (and about 10%-20%, (varies with different groups), are actual rapists.)
They also take a great offense in assuming one's gender basing on physical characteristics, and using plain pronouns like 'he, she' when referring to people, without first asking them which gender pronoun they want used (xe, shi etc...?). It's the kind of people who will protest when presented with a form that requires you to enter your gender and provides two checkboxes - [ ] male [ ] female - ability to check either, both or none is insufficient to describe their genders...
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it didn't fail. it ended it's mission sucessfully.
aaaaaaa
I was manager at Boeing on a Gun-Launch propellant delivery system study, and using them for space launch is quite feasible. They have been used in hypersonic research for decades, like this one at Arnold Engineering Development Center: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... You just need to make one somewhat larger, and install it on a mountain with the right slope.
Gas guns are preferred over electromagnetic ones for low launch rates. The power supply for a space launch gun would be immense, because the power draw is very high for a short time. High pressure gas can be stored in a tank, and released all at once. Electromagnetic would be more efficient in the long run, but you need to overcome the high initial cost.
For humans and spacecraft equipment (as opposed to bulk items like fuel and structural parts), you are limited to about 6 g's (60 m/s^2). There are a few locations on Earth where you can install a 20 km pipe, which lets you reach about Mach 5. The gas pressure for that level of acceleration is surprisingly low, about what is put in vehicle tires.
> The only thing of value in space: water.
You have a very limited view of what is valuable. The amount of solar energy passing the Earth, closer than the Moon's orbit, is equal to the whole world's known fossil fuel reserves every minute. Tapping even a tiny fraction of that could power our entire civilization. What's that worth?
I'm sure you understand that I am not wrong. I have an opinion. So do you. My opinion is different from yours. Neither of us is "wrong" or "right". We might gauge whether one of us is more in line with social mores at a particular point in time. At the moment, my observations are correct. That is why he came under so much pressure. You never know; people like you might be able to convert sufficient other people so that your view becomes the majority. We will still neither of us be "right" or "wrong". We'll just be more or less in line with social mores at a particular point in time.
You can be a child if you want to, but society has a view of itself, just as it always has. At the moment, one of the big issues for society is the imbalance in career choices between girls and boys. Remember, there's no "right" or "wrong" about this; it's just one of the many issues that (our Western) society is debating at the moment. That is why this guy is taking heat for his shirt. This is grown-up stuff, and it takes thinking about. You and the other piss-baby can join the debate like a grown up and take your chance at convincing society that your POV is correct. Saying that "the world is being destroyed by SJWs" can be your opening argument in this debate, if you like, but I don't think it is going to convince anyone. There's no organisation called "SJWs". There's people like you and then there's lots of grown-ups in our societies who are trying to think hard about this stuff. These issues are important. Either think about them and join the debate like an adult, or fuck off.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Thanks. You've very narrowly defined that group in such detail that it appeared no-one has to worry about the three of them - then I remembered this is a vast internet and there will be a lot of bunches of three.
All those dogs that have been kicked and turned mean (obviously an analogy) can now visibly snap out at anyone that comes nearby, so we get to be aware of some people we just did not notice before.
The amount of solar energy passing the Earth, closer than the Moon's orbit...
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Are you talking about a disk sized collector the size of the Moon's orbit?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Actually NASA budget is around 17 billion and ESA budged is $5 billion. In fact, NASA budget is greater than the budgets of European, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Indian space agencies put together.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Nice strawman. You can read my views on the shirt. No offence but trying to argue like this makes you look like an imbecile.
And yet you argue by pretending that one person's expression of their ideas does not exist and attempting impose something else so that you can attack it.
This is just hyperbole. Grow up.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
In fact, it is the AC who is in denial and delusional in his belief that this is a doomed area.
The limiting factor is the fact that the projectile is discharged into air, with huge drag.
If you look at the rail guns made by the US military, you can see the plasma created by travel through the air after it exits the vacuum seal = huge drag. Even a 20 KM vacuum tunnel at a 45 degree angle that discharged at 14 Km above ground would still have a lot of drag to battle, however, we must also realize that every rocket launched must pass through that same regime..
Thus, you might be able to launch a multi stage rocket from an equatorial mountain at 45 degrees to reach a fairly high velocity at about 4 miles up, fulfilling the role of the first stage and the second subsequent stages ignite in the atmosphere after exiting the launch tube.
Would there be a net saving that offsets the cost of the tube? With no need to limit the acceleration to human limits, it might be well suited to supply missions.
What about shielding? The missions that used SNAP-19 power sources kept them on 3m booms to prevent their radiation from interfering with the scientific equipment.
This is grown-up stuff. The thoughts you had as a fifteen year-old don't cut it when you're discussing with grown ups.
You can read my views on the shirt. Just don't misrepresent them, child.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Spend some time on Tumblr, see some blogs of these. They are very much the same, echo chambers / mutual admiration societies, the word 'misandry' uttered with pride. Or look into how some men's rights organizations were snubbed.
Here, have a link to get you primed on a sample of what you're facing.
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Rather not. Hearing about it from posts like yours is enough for me to get a bit of an idea and remind me of people I've met best described as kicked dogs snapping out at outsiders. Such stuff I think covers the entire political spectrum (and it IS politics here despite there being gender issues involved), but we notice it more in "unusual" cases, and it figuratively sells more papers.
See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil...
The linked post is exactly about turning the argument of "margin cases" on its head.
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Ok, I'll take a look when I'm out of the workplace (middle of week long shitstorm due to the wrong person clicking on the wrong link and getting malware resulting in a lot of pissed off people) . Thanks for the link.