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Goodbye, Philae: Rosetta's Comet Lander Lost Forever

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday July 28 2016, @03:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-had-a-good-run dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Everything about the Rosetta comet mission has been epic. It took 10 years for the spacecraft to reach Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which it did in 2014. Rosetta then sent its plucky little lander Philae down to the comet's surface, but a faulty thruster landed it in shadows. Unable to charge itself properly, Philae floated in and out of contact. The Rosetta team last heard from Philae way back in July 2015. It's been silent ever since.

[...] Rosetta is scheduled to wrap up its mission by descending to the comet's surface on September 30. The comet is currently heading away from the sun, which saps the spacecraft of the solar power it needs to continue operations. There is a sense of poetry to Rosetta rejoining its lander on the comet. It may mark the end of Rosetta's activities, but scientists involved in the mission will stay busy for years studying the data sent back by both the craft and the lander.

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  • (Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday July 29 2016, @10:00PM

    by toddestan (4982) on Friday July 29 2016, @10:00PM (#381764)

    I doubt they regret anything, except maybe wearing that shirt on TV. The mission overall was a success. The main mission, which is the orbiter, accomplished all its objectives. The lander accomplished most of its objectives. They always knew that relying on solar power was a bit of a risk, which is why they put a big enough primary non-rechargeable battery in the lander that it was able to conduct almost all of its science experiments before the battery was depleted. If they were going to rely on the solar panels exclusively, they wouldn't have bothered with theprimary battery and just had the secondary rechargeable battery in there. Yes, it would have been nice if the lander was able to continue operations on solar power after that, but the lander still accomplished over 80% of the planned experiments.

    If you want to criticize, I'd ask why didn't the harpoons secure the lander when it first touched down? If the harpoons had worked, the lander would have had plenty of sunlight and no need for a RTG.