After Four Days, Philae Team Gets to Rest

The Associated Press reports on one happy consequence of the inevitable shutdown of the Philae lander, after its incredible landing on Rosetta: the team that was in control of the lander here on earth finally gets to take a well-deserved break, after four nearly sleepless days and nights. It seems unlikely -- though it's not impossible -- that Philae will get enough solar energy to briefly wake up again; its bouncy landing and harpoon malfunction mean that the craft is in shadow rather than the sunlight that it was hoped to bask in. From CNN: Originally, it was supposed to have seven hours of light per comet day -- which lasts just 12.4 hours. Now it is exposed only 1.5 hours a day. That's likely not enough to juice up Philae's rechargeable secondary battery, ESA said. There is one last hope. "Mission controllers sent commands to rotate the lander's main body, to which the solar panels are fixed," ESA says in on its blog. "This may have exposed more panel area to sunlight."

Comments

Re:RTG

[Ken_g6]

It took ten years to get the Rosetta mission to the comet. By then a RTG would be fairly depleted too.

Re:RTG

[Luckyo]

We are suffering from a severe shortage of Pu238 already. It's already one of the main limiting factors to NASA/ESA long range space exploration efforts.

Re:RTG

[mister_playboy]

It's worth pointing out that the cause of this shortage is a political issue rather than a technical one. It started with a non-proliferation bill during the Carter era.