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Now stable

Rosetta: Comet probe Philae now stable - scientists
Breaking news
The robot probe Philae that made a historic landing on a comet is now stable after failing to attach to the surface, the BBC has learnt.

Pictures are coming back from the craft as scientists debate how to proceed.

Previous data from Philae indicated it landed at least three times on the comet, after harpoons failed to attach it to the surface on the first attempt.

Scientists hope the probe will analyse the comet's surface to yield insights into the origins of our Solar System.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30034060
 
koolpc said:
Great achievement but a total waste of money
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Spending on Science is never a waste of money, you can't predict the way discoveries will create future technologies.

Plus it was only 1.4 billion Euros, seems a bargain considering many public spending projects.

Government spend 12 billion pounds on a dumped NHS computer system.
 
POB said:
Spending on Science is never a waste of money, you can't predict the way discoveries will create future technologies.

Plus it was only 1.4 billion Euros, seems a bargain considering many public spending projects.

Government spend 12 billion pounds on a dumped NHS computer system.
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Added to that, the 1.4 billion was spent over something like 10/15 years, works out something like 3 euro 50 for each person in the EU over that time period.
 
Troll indeed.

Any money spent on this type of remote rendezvous with distant bodies will be invaluable when the 'big one' comes our way and we need to get out there and deflect it.
 
Update:

•Rosetta is operating nominally; the network systems and overall ground segment to control the mission are nominal

•Last night, Rosetta lost contact with Philae as expected when it orbited below the horizon just after 20:00 CET.

•Contact was re-established this morning at 06:01 UTC / 07:01 CET, and the Philae-Rosetta radio link was initially unstable.

•As Rosetta rose higher above the Philae landing site, the link became very stable and the lander could transmit telemetry (status and housekeeping information) and science data from the surface.

•This morning's surface link was again lost due to Rosetta's orbit at about 09:58 UTC / 10:58 CET. Ignacio explains that with the current orbit, Rosetta will have, typically, two Philae communication windows per day.

•The next window opens at 19:27 UTC on the spacecraft and runs through to 23:47 UTC spacecraft time.

The team are ensuring that Rosetta maintains an orbit that is optimised for lander communication support; they are planning a manoeuvre (thruster burn) today to be conducted on Friday that will help keep Rosetta where it should be. Rosetta already conducted a burn last night as part of this effort.

Rosetta is presently sending signals to the ground stations at about 28 Kbps; Ignacio says that the spacecraft's own telemetry downlink uses about 1 or 2 Kbps of this, so the rest is being used to download science data from Rosetta and lander science and telemetry from the surface.
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