Online At Last: Comet Lander Philae Wakes Up

techtech writes with this news from the BBC: The European Space Agency (ESA) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth. Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November. It worked for 60 hours before its solar-powered battery ran flat. The comet has since moved nearer to the sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos. An account linked to the probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?" Watch this space for some more links to follow. Update: 06/14 13:39 GMT by T : From the ESA's Rosetta blog: 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," [according to project manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec.] 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.

Comments

The press conference

[Applehu Akbar]

This time, just for fun, all the men will appear without shirts.

Re:The press conference

[Anonymous Coward]

Your bitter misogyny about not getting laid, is why you don't get laid.

Re:Obligatory

[aquabat]

Better reference: http://xkcd.com/1446/

Re:I love this little probe.

[PNutts]

The next message is, "Sorry I am late but I met this girl..."

V'Ger? She's kind of a bitch.

Re:I love this little probe.

[Hognoxious]

Only if you're a carbon unit. Man, does she hate those!