Slashdot Mirror
Fascinating Rosetta Image Captures Philae's Comet Bounce
mpicpp points out that high-resolution pictures have been released of Philae's landing. "The hunt for Rosetta's lost lander Philae is gaining steam as scientists pore over images from above the comet that may help reveal its final location. The ESA released an image Monday taken by Rosetta's OSIRIS camera showing Philae's first bounce on the comet. The mosaic includes a series of pictures tracking the lander descending toward the comet, the initial touchdown point and then an image of the lander moving east. 'The imaging team is confident that combining the CONSERT ranging data with OSIRIS and navcam images from the orbiter and images from near the surface and on it from Philae's ROLIS and CIVA cameras will soon reveal the lander's whereabouts,' says the ESA."
Hey, they've done something that nobody has done before. Kudos are in order. Low-gravity landings on giant loose lint-balls are still new territory.
The amount of science returned is still unknown because they are still sifting the data. At the very least, they got close-up photos of the surface of a comet for geologists to study.
I hope they take their lessons and make a better comet mission.
Remember, the US Ranger program took 7 tries before they had success. The comet mission had partial success on the first try! Practice makes perfect.
Perhaps they can make the next one spherical and not require any particular landing orientation. Put wire-frame bumpers on it and let it go ahead and bounce. It can adjust its angle after a landing.
Table-ized A.I.
They had backups, but those also failed. Also, no part of the lander could be considered a single point of failure in the big picture since the orbiter had the more important gear. They revised the design at one point on the recommendation that the orbiter was better suited for getting some of the composition and mapping data that was the main goal of the project, so the lander was scaled back. Adding more mass to the orbiter at the expense of other stuff it was carrying to support the lander would be still sacrificing higher priority stuff for lower priority stuff. Especially considering that the majority of instruments on the lander were of limited use, and only three of the ten instruments would be of much (but diminishing) use after a couple days with continual power. Short of a complete redesign of the mission, there is not much reason to cut corners elsewhere or increase the cost to extend the life of the lander.
A stationary orbit would not be straightforward, as for the mass and rotation speed of 67P, you would need a distance of ~3 km from the center of the comet, which is close enough your orbit won't be a simple conic section. You still have to keep Rosetta pointed at the lander, which is the fuel consuming part mentioned above, and probably need some more spinning to get reasonable amount of power to the orbiter, not to mention now the orbiter will have more time in the shade too.