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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.
Sometimes it works in your favor.
I respectfully disagree. I think it's pretty interesting that a spacecraft has gotten itself going via solar power and is communicating with base. That's about as "news for nerds" as it gets. Watching for further updates is also a pretty nerdnewsworthy practice. Spaceships are cool.
A lump of machinery but in a very interesting and unique location...
Because it's fun? It gives a little personality to not just the lander, but to the team running the project.