Rosetta, Philae and Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

[Kryten]

Is there any indication where it ended up in the end? Presumably the comet was rotating under it during its (as many as) 2 bounces?

Somewhere closer to the neck than the planned site. Rosetta is going to try to image it to determine the exact location.

[Tommygun]

Philae has set yet again a new record: The most landings made by a single spacecraft in space.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Tommygun

[Sky_walker]

Debatable. In my dictionary - it doesn't count as a landing unless you stand still on a surface.

[lajoswinkler]

This was very much predictable. We saw from the very high resolution images of the site (example: near Cheops boulder) the surface was grainy at less than 1 m/px. Those are huge rocks.

I just hope Philae has a long enough arm to reach anything. It really was expected.

[Lohan2008]

European Space Agency will try to (remotely) fire the harpoons on Philae.

Over the next 2.5 days, the lander will conduct its primary science mission, assuming that its main battery remains in good health. An extended science phase using the rechargeable secondary battery may be possible, assuming Sun illumination conditions allow and dust settling on the solar panels does not prevent it. This extended phase could last until March 2015.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Lohan2008

[angusmcbeth]

I think I see a harpoon cable in the image??. Bottom, just to the right of center.

Looks firmly set beneath the glassy crust!

[Tommygun]

I think I see a harpoon cable in the image??. Bottom, just to the right of center.

Looks firmly set beneath the glassy crust!

I think you are seeing one of the CONSERT antennas (COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radio wave Transmission).

[Korkin]

i have quiestions...

how Rosetta stays on orbit with comet.

as i see it Rosseta aligned speed with the comet and now flies in parallel to comet, close to each other at the same orbit around the sun.

Correction of position around the comet is made by firing engines giving impulse to needed direction.

how it works?

because if the gravity is so low on surface of the comet, then how can Rosetta stay on orbit around comet - due to comet`s gravity or due to propulsive force of engines.

does it rotate around the comet? or it is the comet rorates around its axis (Rosetta stays at same position close to it) that also explains why communication with Philae was lost for a while.

[StainX]

I think I see a harpoon cable in the image??. Bottom, just to the right of center.

Looks firmly set beneath the glassy crust!

Look closer... the shadow stops aprupt of that thing in a straight line at the end. I think its the CONSERT antenna/instrument

Edit:

Hmmm the landing leg is not touching the ground, at least the shadow is not close to that leg...

Edited November 13, 2014 by StainX

[Sky_walker]

LANDER STATUS UPDATE: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/13/philae-the-happy-lander/

Only 2 scientific instruments are not turned on just yet, everything else works perfectly!

because if the gravity is so low on surface of the comet, then how can Rosetta stay on orbit around comet - due to comet`s gravity or due to propulsive force of engines.

It's actually on an orbit (in an every sense of that word), just comet rotates much more quickly than the orbital period (it's supersynchronous orbit). Sadly I don't know the orbital period at the moment, sorry.

or it is the comet rorates around its axis

Comet rotation period is 12.4 hour.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Sky_walker

[aviators99]

LANDER STATUS UPDATE: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/13/philae-the-happy-lander/

"Happy Lander" as in "rolling on the floor laughing" happy?

[angusmcbeth]

I think you are seeing one of the CONSERT antennas (COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radio wave Transmission).

Yeah.....looked like a woven metal rope, but you're right. Harpoons did not fire.

[Sky_walker]

Another news: Looks like bottom of a spacecraft is 20-30cm away from the surface, which is great for the instruments!

It also seems that bouncing gave scientists and unique opportunity to gather data from more than one spot and compare. It might be very beneficial to the mission.

Philae is getting only 1 hour 30 minutes of light every 12 hours, so they'll have to reprogram some instruments to cope with lower amount of energy. But overall it looks like an extended mission will be happening after all.

"Happy Lander" as in "rolling on the floor laughing" happy?

It's sitting still and laughing.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Fingal]

Live briefing about to start http://new.livestream.com/ESA/cometlanding

[Streetwind]

Another news: Looks like bottom of a spacecraft is 20-30cm away from the surface, which is great for the instruments!

But isn't the perhaps most important instrument of all, the surface sample drill, only ~30 cm long? The intention was to take samples from up to 30 cm below the surface, and in fact compare various depths. If Philae is sitting that far up, the drill may not be able to reach the surface. Or if it can, then it'll only barely touch the very low value upper surface, where all volatile material has long since outgassed...

[Tommygun]

But isn't the perhaps most important instrument of all, the surface sample drill, only ~30 cm long? The intention was to take samples from up to 30 cm below the surface, and in fact compare various depths. If Philae is sitting that far up, the drill may not be able to reach the surface. Or if it can, then it'll only barely touch the very low value upper surface, where all volatile material has long since outgassed...

Well the drill is on a boom that is lower to the surface first, so that may not matter.

[Sky_walker]

Meeting brief:

- Philae is in a shadow of a cliff. That's why it gets only 1 hour 30 minutes of light.

- Philae is almost vertical (as reported earlier), but not perfectly parallel to the ground.

- 2 legs are touching ground, one is most likely in space.

- They can still move lander using the flywheel. They'll probably try to reorient the lander for better exposure to the sun light.

- They still don't know an exact position of Philae

- First jump: 1:50, 38cm/s acceleration, up to 1km altitude, 1km distance, Philae was slowly rotating during this jump. They know exact location of first touchdown, less than 100 meters from ideal point.

- Second jump: few minutes, around 3cm/s. Comms link was lost 30 minutes after the touchdown, Philae stood still.

- Cometary nucleus scan was successfully completed. It'll help estimate position.

- Today signal link was perfect after locking it.

- This evening, around 7:30 they'll get new contact window and upload new set of commands to the Philae.

- Currently Philae is near the side of a crater - probably on a rim - that's on a southern lobe of the comet.

... keep on going in the next post.....

Edited November 13, 2014 by Sky_walker
Done for there.

[nine_iron]

I think they should lift off and seek a better spot, 1.5 hours is barely enough to keep the lights on and cook lunch.

[Dilir]

Wow 0.38m/s at the rebound. Not that far from escape velocity.

[Klingon Admiral]

I think they should lift off and seek a better spot, 1.5 hours is barely enough to keep the lights on and cook lunch.

Might be hard with a probe that doesn't really have a way to move itself.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Klingon Admiral

[Andersenman]

Correction:

- First jump: 1:50

[lajoswinkler]

[Sky_walker]

Meeting brief (part 2):

- Philae is in a shadow of a cliff. That's why it gets only 1 hour 30 minutes of light.

- Philae is almost vertical (as reported earlier), but not perfectly parallel to the ground.

- 2 legs are touching ground, one is most likely in space.

- They can still move lander using the flywheel. They'll probably try to reorient the lander for better exposure to the sun light.

- They still don't know an exact position of Philae

- First jump: 1:50, 38cm/s acceleration, up to 1km altitude, 1km distance, Philae was slowly rotating during this jump. They know exact location of first touchdown, less than 100 meters from ideal point.

- Second jump: few minutes, around 3cm/s. Comms link was lost 30 minutes after the touchdown, Philae stood still.

- Cometary nucleus scan was successfully completed. It'll help estimate position.

- Today signal link was perfect after locking it.

- This evening, around 7:30 they'll get new contact window and upload new set of commands to the Philae.

- Currently Philae is near the side of a crater - probably on a rim - that's on a southern lobe of the comet.

- They'll release full-res images to the public after the meeting.

- Surface of the first landing side is covered with dust and rocks (from small to several cm in size).

- Rosetta performed flawlessly and the Philae descend trajectory was amazingly accurate.

- They got a nice sequence of descend photographed by Osiris, where you see the Philae slowly rotating and a shot of Philae right next to 67/P. And one very nice, well exposed photo of Philae on it's way.

- First landing spot is flat like hell...

- Rosetta/Osiris photographed the area around original landing side hoping to find Philae. They'll keep on taking additional photos trying to find it, got 2 strong candidates for possible landing locations.

QA session:

- "Cliffs" are very low density. They can't really say if it's a crust or not.

- Bounce could be caused by hitting a higher strength surface right under a very thin layer of dust.

- Lander can jump by extending the landing gear. But in current position they wouldn't dare to operate it without knowing the position exactly. Most likely they won't be able to analize the consequences of such jumps before running out of power.

- Drilling without being anchored is dangerous, they might just tip over. They have to analyze the situation.

- Drills and harpoons will not be activated in coming hours. They will go through experiments from least risky to most risky. They might try something tomorrow.

- They have some flexibility, hoping to optimize position of the lander.

- Solar panels are not damaged

- They don't know how long primary battery will last. Noone knows what happens after tomorrow.

- Speaker highlights that we can't talk about a failure - this mission is an amazing success, they're doing things that are on the edge of what human kind can achieve.

- Thanks for reading, feel free to click

Video for those who want to see the whole thing: http://new.livestream.com/ESA/cometlanding/videos/67965864

Edited November 13, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Andersenman]

I still struggle to understand the orientation ... the image with the pictures arranged around the lander, is it a top view or a side view?

[Kryten]

It's a panorama with Philae digitally inserted.