Sunday, June 21, 2015

Philae spoke 19 minutes with the Earth – TF1

He had been heard of for several days. This Friday, the European robot Philae, which is on the comet “tchouri”, managed to communicate for 19 minutes with the probe Rosetta , announced DLR, the German space agency. This third contact from waking June 13 after seven months of hibernation confirms that “Philae is fine.”

The contact was restored Friday between 3:39 p.m. 3:20 p.m. ET Paris time. The robot lab sent data including module status. “Now, LG operates at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius, which means the battery is hot enough to store energy,” the DLR, which is responsible for steering the robot to the European Space Agency (ESA). “This means that Philae will also work at night.” Recently, Philae working day through its solar panels but its battery was too cold for charging. On the comet, the day is just over 12.00.


Stable signal over a long period

The robot, which arose between cliffs and stayed in the shade for several months, also sent data recorded last week. The engineers found that the brightness had increased as the comet approaches the sun. “At the end of the contact, the four solar panels received energy,” the DLR.

Friday, “communication has suffered several interruptions but otherwise it was the first time that the signal was stable over a long period.” “We need a stable and long contact in order to run the experiments as planned”, he stresses DLR. To improve communications with Philae, the Rosetta teams escort the comet on its way to the Sun, decided to alter the flight plan of the probe.

Philae has ten instruments. Scientists hope it will find such complex organic molecules that could give the keys to the emergence of life on Earth.

Already two communications but shorter

The robot had already succeeded on the day of his awakening to communicate for two minutes with the Earth via the probe and transmit data. The next day there was again a contact but of poor quality. Since he had remained silent.

The robot has made November 12 a historic first landing on the nucleus of comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko. He worked for 60 hours before dozing off for lack of sufficient sunlight to allow its solar batteries run


& gt;. & Gt; Video: Philae robot woke


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