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

Vicomt

By Vicomt
in Science & Spaceflight

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Sky_walker

Sky_walker

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Posted (edited)

Meeting brief:

previous brief - from meeting yesterday.

- MUPUS and APXS activated, worked. MUPUS went down to 25 cm from the base plate, but they couldn't receive all of the science data before end of a comms link (they spent plenty of time uploading commands and moving housekeeping data around).

- This evening we'll know if drilling succeeded, though so far early data suggests that it did manage to contact ground before end of a contact window. Data from the experiment will arrive in a next window.

- 9pm UTC - beginning of a next contact window (but expected to establish the data link since 10pm UTC)

These were two most risky experiments and that despite of earlier worries - everything will go well!

- Rosetta still did not manage to photograph Philae. Single photograph is between 1x1 and 2x2 km in area. Right now it's the highest priority for OSIRIS team. They have 84 post-landing images so far.

- NASA says they're very excited about small body exploration age.

- They plan to rotate lander to get larger panel in a sunlight - this should make it more likely for Philae to wake up after some time, as Comet approaches closer to the sun.

- They need 80 Wh to complete current experiment, and have 100 Wh left.

- It will be really, really close if they'll make it to the another contact window (one after the upcoming one)

- They say that bouncing out of the current "hole" is very unlikely.

- It looks like they are surrounded by rocks.

- All 3 rocks on the ground, Philae did not move at all after the first landing

- They're looking to spin up the flywheel and "throw it (Philae) somewhere" in a hope to move out of the current position. It's "an attractive idea" but they don't know if there will be enough power to perform such maneuver.

(updates go on a next page)

Edited by Sky_walker
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VirtualCLD

VirtualCLD

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I've been following as well, but I didn't catch how many pixels is the search area? Did they mention what the resolution is in terms of cm, m, etc...?

A little OT, but what the heck was Matt Taylor talking about an offensive shirt? He even got choked up over it!

Update: Ok, a little Google search for for #shirtgate or #shortstorm reveals what that was about. Feel free to look it up yourself, but that is a discussion for a thread/site.

Edited by VirtualCLD
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Sky_walker

Sky_walker

Posted
Posted (edited)

Meeting brief:

previous brief - from meeting yesterday.

- MUPUS and APXS activated, worked. MUPUS went down to 25 cm from the base plate, but they couldn't receive all of the science data before end of a comms link (they spent plenty of time uploading commands and moving housekeeping data around).

- This evening we'll know if drilling succeeded, though so far early data suggests that it did manage to contact ground before end of a contact window. Data from the experiment will arrive in a next window.

- 9pm UTC - beginning of a next contact window (but expected to establish the data link since 10pm UTC)

These were two most risky experiments and that actually run, despite of earlier worries that they won't. Hopefully everything will go well with the drill and data will be there in perfect shape for scientists to explore!

- Rosetta still did not manage to photograph Philae. Single photograph is between 1x1 and 2x2 km in area. Right now it's the highest priority for OSIRIS team. They have 84 post-landing images so far.

- NASA says they're very excited about small body exploration age.

- They plan to rotate lander to get larger panel in a sunlight - this should make it more likely for Philae to wake up after some time, as Comet approaches closer to the sun.

- They need 80 Wh to complete current experiment, and have 100 Wh left.

- It will be really, really close if they'll make it to the another contact window (one after the upcoming one)

- They say that bouncing out of the current "hole" is very unlikely.

- It looks like they are surrounded by rocks.

- All 3 legs on the ground, Philae did not move at all after the first landing

- They're looking to spin up the flywheel and "throw it (Philae) somewhere" in a hope to move out of the current position. It's "an attractive idea" but they don't know if there will be enough power to perform such maneuver.

- No plans to fire harpoons again

- Measurement from COSAC requires less energy and is more complimentary to the measurements from an orbiter, that's why it was selected instead of PTOLEMY to receive a surface sample.

- Comet is gray, but there are few, small, brighter areas where they see less red. (That's contrary to some earlier illustrations random people made online picturing 67/P in brown).

- Landing gear successfully dumped majority of the impact energy. Otherwise they'd have even larger jumps.

- They don't expect lander to be blown away by out-gassing. It's density is very high.

- Now they can do the science, that the data is here.

- Lander needs 5.1W to boot, they have to heat batteries up to 0 degrees C to charge the batteries, so the hope to recharge battery is only there if they get closer to the sun, at least 1AU.

- Every scientific instrument is working very well.

- Synchronous orbit is not possible - orbiter will be too disturbed by the outgassing on a day side to stay there, and as far as it could stay on a night side - it wouldn't gather much useful data there.

- Rosetta is on a terminator plane, a safe orbit with minimal perturbations to the orbiter. They are flying on a very short hyperbolic arcs making burns to turn, but soon they'll get back to 30km circular orbit. They hope to make 8km flyby early next year.

- Someone asks why Philae has no nuclear battery. Everyone laugh. :D

- Europe has no capability to produce RTGs due to political reasons.

- Hayabusa 2 and Osiris Rex are 2 upcoming missions to the asteroids.

Summary notes:

- Philae is already a great success. There will be a good science from a current results, even if everything fails right now. They already have great data down on earth. Now it's up to scientists.

- Every instrument got a chance to get measurement.

- In August next year comet will be "active like hell".

- Image from ÇIVA at of a lander leg at the surface of a comet was an image of the life ~Holger Sierks

- First results from the lander will be heard in December.

- This was fantastic and crazy week for the scientists, something they waited for over 20 years.

- They'll try to keep everyone up to date not only in upcoming weekend, but over a year as well.

- Thanks for reading, feel free to click reputation-40b.pngk_wink.gif

Video for those who want to see the whole thing:

Edited by Sky_walker
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VirtualCLD

VirtualCLD

Posted
Posted

- It looks like they are surrounded by rocks.

- All 3 rocks on the ground, Philae did not move at all after the first landing

- They're looking to spin up the flywheel and "throw it (Philae) somewhere" in a hope to move out of the current position. It's "an attractive idea" but they don't know if there will be enough power to perform such maneuver.

(post updated live)

I'm a little confused, could you explain what you mean by "All 3 rocks on the ground, Philae did not move at all after the first landing?" Are they saying it didn't hop and make three landings after all?

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Camacha

Camacha

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I'm a little confused, could you explain what you mean by "All 3 rocks on the ground, Philae did not move at all after the first landing?" Are they saying it didn't hop and make three landings after all?

All three feet/legs, not rocks :)

Edited by Camacha
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heng

heng

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[snip]

actually, it is increasingly difficult to find the right isotope for a working RTG.

usually these use Pu238, which is not used in nuclear weaponry - hence in short supply. This specific isotope has to be explicitly bred for this purpose, and AFAIK hasn't been in great demand during the last few years... partly because for fear of failure, partly because deep space missions fell out of focus during the late 20th century....

PS: from the wiki:

"The United States stopped producing bulk plutonium-238 in 1988; since 1993, all of the plutonium-238 used in American spacecraft has been purchased from Russia. In total, 16.5 kilograms have been purchased but Russia is no longer producing plutonium-238 and their own supply is reportedly running low."

Edited by Vanamonde
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Andersenman

Andersenman

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Posted (edited)

"How do the cameras on [...] the Rosetta [mission] and an iphone camera compare?"

Well, one comes with a juicy price tag, gets around quite a lot, shoots images of tight crevices at awkward angles, gets them heavily processed and then posted all over the Internet, and the other is an iPhone. ;)

Edited by Andersenman
that way round is funnier.
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Camacha

Camacha

Posted
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OSIRIS-REx? Did you mean, Tyran-OSIRIS-REx? :D

Meeting brief:- Someone asks why Philae has no nuclear battery. Everyone laugh. :D

- Europe has no capability to produce RTGs due to political reasons.

Didn't that have something to do with nuclear weapons? It saddens me a bit, as that is the one thing that could have made this a different mission entirely. Solar power is obviously flawed for these kinds of undertakings.

Edited by Camacha
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PakledHostage

PakledHostage

Posted
Posted
Should be "legs". Sorry :)

Thanks for all your work summarizing the news conferences! I am still confused, though, by what you mean by "it didn't move after the first landing"? Does that mean, now, that they think it didn't actually bounce twice? Or do you mean that it didn't move after the third touch down?

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Camacha

Camacha

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Is it practical to design an RTG to last 10 plus years and be small enough for Philae?

Is it practical to spend 220 million on a lander and 1,4 billion on a project, only to have your piece the résistance work for a short week after 10 years in space? Yes, the data and science is incredibly valuable and already worth that investment, but just imagine what we would learn if we could ride along as the comet falls past the sun.

Also remember that you could power Rosetta with the RTG, switch Rosetta to solar panels when you arrive at the comet and then drop the RTG together with Philea. If you could get your hands on the technology, that is.

Thanks for all your work summarizing the news conferences! I am still confused, though, by what you mean by "it didn't move after the first landing"? Does that mean, now, that they think it didn't actually bounce twice? Or do you mean that it didn't move after the third touch down?

Still three bounces, but all legs are touching the ground. No legs are sticking into space, as thought before. It landed the third time, put three legs on the ground and stayed there.

Edited by Camacha
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Kryten

Kryten

Posted
Posted
Didn't that have something to do with nuclear weapons? It saddens me a bit, as that is the one thing that could have made this a different mission entirely. Solar power is obviously flawed for these kinds of undertakings.

Slightly, in that much of the infrastructure is common to that used to produce isotopes for nuclear weapons. That in itself isn't the issue; the issue is producing that kind of infrastructure from scratch just to make a few RTGs is not remotely worth it economically. Nuclear weapons stunt hold it back, they make it possible.

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Sky_walker

Sky_walker

Posted
Posted
Thanks for all your work summarizing the news conferences! I am still confused, though, by what you mean by "it didn't move after the first landing"? Does that mean, now, that they think it didn't actually bounce twice? Or do you mean that it didn't move after the third touch down?

It means that it did not slide nor made any moves while conducting experiments.

We're talking here about post-landing sequence of events, not landing itself.

And: Thank you :)

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Sky_walker

Sky_walker

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Another success. MUPUS instrument deployed and worked flawlessly hammering into the surface of a comet.

Short video of the hammering action:

And a longer video on how it works :

---

Shameless link to my brief from the latest press conference.

---

Distant horizons: https://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/15786846832/

15786846832_406cc5f5b4_z_d.jpg

If I promise not to ruin this thread by criticising a shirt, can you promise not to ruin this thread by criticising people criticising shirts? In other words, can we have a thread about the comet landing?

Not trying to be a mod, just trying to contain my urges to respond to this matter and comments like this make it a bit hard to ignore the subject.

Part of a reason why I hate this whole thing - can't make up my mind which side is worse. Both call names, both threaten each other with death or suggest committing suicide. It's ridiculous. Let's not have this here, please. Focus on an important stuff: Science. It's "The Science Labs". If anyone wants to discuss random topics - there's a separate section of the forum for that.

Edited by Sky_walker
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Mister Spock

Mister Spock

Posted
Posted

So we're waiting to see whether the lander will communicate again in another 3 hours or so? The website said something about possibly trying to turn the unit so that it gets more sun on its solar arrays. I don't fully understand what's going on, but I'm certainly rooting for more successes!

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Drunken Hobo

Drunken Hobo

Posted
Posted
If I promise not to ruin this thread by criticising a shirt, can you promise not to ruin this thread by criticising people criticising shirts? In other words, can we have a thread about the comet landing?

Not trying to be a mod, just trying to contain my urges to respond to this matter and comments like this make it a bit hard to ignore the subject.

Pfft, typical SJW trying to shut down debate.

I agree, I was just joking. As others have said, it's a bloody shirt. In the context of a comet landing, it's not really an important detail. Although it is certainly amusing that the shirt was made by one of the guy's female friends.

I think most people can agree though - the guy has absolutely terrible taste in clothing.

It's kind of annoying there are more photos of the shirt than ones from the Philae lander. What's taking them so long?

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