ESA Still Searching For Philae; May Have Zeroed In On a Possible Location

hypnosec writes with the news that the European Space Agency may have located the agency's Philae lander. The official Rosetta blog says Fortunately, it was possible to narrow down the lander’s final location by using the radio signals sent between Philae and Rosetta as part of the CONSERT experiment after the final touchdown. Combining data on the signal travel time between the two spacecraft with the known trajectory of Rosetta and the current best shape model for the comet, the CONSERT team have been able to establish the location of Philae to within an ellipse roughly 16 x 160 metres in size, just outside the rim of the Hatmehit depression. That means just a few candidates for Philae's current location, based on imaging performed by Rosetta's OSIRIS camera.

Comments

Possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

That title did a Great Job of capturing what they did and the difficulty of it.

Oh wait -- I may have just zeroed in on another possible location!

I have an exact location :p

[youn]

It's on the fricking comet. At this point, what difference does it make where it is exactly?

Re:I have an exact location :p

[JohnStock]

Wild guess.. You don't work in the space industry do you?

Re:I have an exact location :p

[Applehu Akbar]

Knowing the exact location would be important in determining whether it will get sunlight - and therefore revive - as the comet draws closer to perihelion.

Re:I have an exact location :p

[Anonymous Coward]

I know where you head is, it's up your ass.

But it will take some sophisticated measurement to figure out how far up your ass it is.

Re:I have an exact location :p

[behrooz0az]

ikr, They have to know if they're going to keep their jobs, and if so for how long.

Re:I have an exact location :p

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Beyond the things already mentioned, maybe to verify again if our intellectual ability to predict complex events from measurements actually works?

Re:I have an exact location :p

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing the exact location would be important in determining whether it will get sunlight - and therefore revive - as the comet draws closer to perihelion.

Quite important apparently - as it has just done exactly that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33126885

Re:I have an exact location :p

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should rename it to Benghazi ..

Re:I have an exact location :p

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing any geologist will tell you is that if you have a rock removed from its context, any tests you do are worth a lot less. The lander did all sorts of tests. Knowing the exact location will allow the context to be determined, and allow extrapolation from that point to the rest of the comet surface if it has similar terrain and spectral characteristics. Without the location, you don't really know what you've sampled.

Re:I have an exact location :p

[Anonymous Coward]

Why assume it's a hostile question? I work in the space industry (on Mars, not comets, and not in planetary geology although that's where I work) and had the same question. I'd bet my life that I know more about space than you will your whole life. It's infantile hostility like yours that makes me dislike the internet more and more and I've been on the internet since usenet started. Back then, of course, you had to be moderately intelligent. Now they let anyone in

Hatmehit

[Anonymous Coward]

is Rubberduckese for "it hit my head"

Alive, and reporting back to Mother Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33126885

Re:Alive, and reporting back to Mother Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

It's official. apparently it has been working for a while and finally established contact.
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/14/rosettas-lander-philae-wakes-up-from-hibernation/

Philae has woke up

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Rosetta blog: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/14/rosettas-lander-philae-wakes-up-from-hibernation/

Rosetta's lander Philae is out of hibernation!

The signals were received at ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt at 22:28 CEST on 13 June. More than 300 data packets have been analysed by the teams at the Lander Control Center at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

"Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35C and has 24 Watts available," explains DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec. "The lander is ready for operations."

For 85 seconds Philae "spoke" with its team on ground, via Rosetta, in the first contact since going into hibernation in November.

When analysing the status data it became clear that Philae also must have been awake earlier: "We have also received historical data - so far, however, the lander had not been able to contact us earlier."

Now the scientists are waiting for the next contact. There are still more than 8000 data packets in Philae’s mass memory which will give the DLR team information on what happened to the lander in the past few days on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Philae shut down on 15 November 2015 at 1:15 CET after being in operation on the comet for about 60 hours. Since 12 March 2015 the communication unit on orbiter Rosetta was turned on to listen out for the lander.

More information when we have it!

Philae just woke up !

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/14/rosettas-lander-philae-wakes-up-from-hibernation/

Great !

May have zeroed in on a possible location?

[Anonymous Coward]

"May have zeroed in on a possible location?" Don't you mean "may or may not have plausibly zeroed in on a potential candidate presenting a tentative chance of maybe suggesting a possible clue to a non-unlikely location"? Or is that too straightforward?