Long-Lost Comet Lander Philae Found (seeker.com)

astroengine writes: With only a month before its mission ends, the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission swooped low over Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko to see the stranded Philae lander jammed in a crack. After months of searching for the lander, which made its dramatic touchdown on Nov. 14, 2014, mission scientists had a good idea as to the region the robot was in, but this is the first photographic proof of the lander, on its side, stuck in the craggy location called Abydos. "This wonderful news means that we now have the missing 'ground-truth' information needed to put Philae's three days of science into proper context, now that we know where that ground actually is!" said Rosetta project scientist Matt Taylor in a statement.

Comments

Overall a disappointing mission

[Ecuador]

I don't like to talk bad about the labors of perhaps good engineers, but it did seem there were some issues with the design of this mission. Granted, landing on a comet is a delicate process, however it lacks the extra difficulties that planetary landings have, especially when you have to speed through atmosphere and apart from having to break you have to make sure your instruments are protected from the ordeal. So the fact that (without having the craft go through such an ordeal as atmospheric breaking etc) both methods that Philae had available for a good landing, the gas thruster and the grappling hook, were DOA is pretty bad compared to the performance of other crafts. And forget about the grappling hooks which are unusual, how do you screw up a simple thruster, something that has been implemented in various forms thousands of times for various satellites.
Sure, there was some interesting science gained, but that was not thanks to the part of the team responsible for the landing...

Re:Overall a disappointing mission

[Ecuador]

I don't understand why I can't say that part of the project was botched. I have actually worked on projects that required the finished product to "work 100%" when put in production (not "in space" the closest I have reached is satellite communication software) and it was not a matter of "unlimited engineering, time or weight budget", it was mostly a matter of solid design and especially testing. In this particular case, it seems that they either did not fully vacuum-test their harpoon firing, or the test was not right and they actually found this would be a problem while the probe was in space, from other people tests if I understand correctly! http://archive.wired.com/wired... (see comments section). They thought they had found a solution, bit it either did not work, or there was an additional problem with the wiring.
Also a gas thruster is sort of a simple device, I think you just have to make sure it doesn't leak. But it failed as well. That's 2/2 control systems gone...