The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond

Cosimo · 12 Jun 2015 at 06:33

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, NASA astronaut Terry Virts and Russian commander Anton Shkaplerov are back home:

This landing has been captured on video.

Cosimo · 12 Jun 2015 at 12:21

Some nice landing pictures:

Expedition 43 Soyuz TMA-15M Landing (201506110002HQ) by NASA HQ PHOTO, on Flickr

Expedition 43 Soyuz TMA-15M Landing (201506110001HQ) by NASA HQ PHOTO, on Flickr

Cosimo · 13 Jun 2015 at 08:20

Cosimo · 13 Jun 2015 at 10:26

ESA is still searching for the location of the Philae lander:

There is still hope that as the comet flies closer to sun the lander can wake up!

More:

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/11/the-quest-to-find-philae-2/

Glaucus · 13 Jun 2015 at 15:27

More info
http://www.universetoday.com/120797/have-we-found-rosettas-lost-philae-lander/

Edit - or not didn't see your link

Combat squirrel · 14 Jun 2015 at 13:24

Philae IS ALIVE !!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-e...ng&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central

Dougsnake · 14 Jun 2015 at 13:27

Quite funny seeing Philae and Rosetta talking to each other on twitter lol

Cosimo · 14 Jun 2015 at 14:06

"Hello earth! Can you hear me"

Glaucus · 14 Jun 2015 at 14:21

Awesome news, lets hope they can at least get the data off it, that they couldn't before.

Cosimo · 14 Jun 2015 at 16:41

From ESA:

Rosetta's lander Philae wakes up from hibernation

14 June 2015 Rosetta's lander Philae has woken up after seven months in hibernation on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The signals were received at ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt at 22:28 CEST on 13 June. More than 300 data packets have been analysed by the teams at the Lander Control Center at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

"Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 Watts available," explains DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec. "The lander is ready for operations."

For 85 seconds Philae "spoke" with its team on ground, via Rosetta, in the first contact since going into hibernation in November.

When analysing the status data it became clear that Philae also must have been awake earlier: "We have also received historical data – so far, however, the lander had not been able to contact us earlier."

Now the scientists are waiting for the next contact. There are still more than 8000 data packets in Philae’s mass memory which will give the DLR team information on what happened to the lander in the past few days on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Philae shut down on 15 November 2014 at 1:15 CET after being in operation on the comet for about 60 hours. Since 12 March 2015 the communication unit on orbiter Rosetta was turned on to listen out for the lander.

CaptainRAVE · 14 Jun 2015 at 19:19

Such brilliant news

JRS · 14 Jun 2015 at 20:26

CaptainRAVE said:
Such brilliant news

It really is

Khrest · 14 Jun 2015 at 21:12

Made my day and my family came running, wondering why I was cheering at my monitor !

sityeuropa · 14 Jun 2015 at 22:21

How much power would it have now?

Cosimo · 15 Jun 2015 at 06:56

sityeuropa said:
How much power would it have now?

Enough for operations:

"Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 Watts available," explains DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec. "The lander is ready for operations."

It has a:

140 watt-hour battery recharged by the solar panels to be used after the primary is exhausted. The solar panels cover 2.2 square metres (24 sq ft) and were designed to deliver up to 32 watts at a distance of 3 AU from the Sun

This has a life of ten years.

NeilF · 15 Jun 2015 at 12:10

The Sky At Night did a great job keeping the news upto date! They were doing the episode on Sunday (yesterday) about Rosetta, and somehow incorporated plenty of info about the lander waking up!

Cosimo · 16 Jun 2015 at 06:17

More great 4k video from above:

Cosimo · 16 Jun 2015 at 10:04

Update on Philae:

Engineers at the Lander Control Centre have determined that Philae is already being exposed to sufficient sunlight to heat it to an acceptable operating temperature and to generate electricity.

“Power levels increase during the local ‘comet day’ – the part of the about-12 hour comet rotation when Philae is in sunlight – from 13 W at comet sunrise to above 24 W,” notes ESA’s Patrick Martin, Rosetta Mission Manager. “It needs at least 19 W to switch on the transmitter.”

The telemetry downloaded covered the lander’s status for a full night–day cycle of the comet, which is helping ground teams to understand how the Sun is shining on the lander. The solar panels appear to be receiving power for over 135 minutes in each illumination period.

“While the information we have is very preliminary, it appears that the lander is in as good a condition as we could have hoped,” says Dr Ulamec.

More:

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Philae_wake-up_triggers_intense_planning

Cosimo · 16 Jun 2015 at 17:38

The Planetary Society has said that LightSail had entered Earth's atmosphere and met a fiery end at 17:23 UTC on Sunday near the South Atlantic Ocean. It has declared the mission a success:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20160615-lightsail-test-mission-ends.html

The next mission is planned for 2016.

Mp4 · 18 Jun 2015 at 09:53

Any space missions that are worth waiting for? Landings etc

** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond