Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Researchers are still hoping a last revival of Philae – Eco News .com

Published (Updated by Michele Lejeune

the deep silence of Philae, scientists are unable to continue the Rosetta mission if the situation does not improve. So it would end with the end of the robot / laboratory that has not reconnected for several months. “The

With deep silence of Philae, scientists are unable to continue the Rosetta mission if the situation does not improve. So it would end with the end of the robot / laboratory that has not reconnected for several months.

“The probability that we have a contact decreases and As time progresses, but we can not say today that this is definitely over, “said Philippe Gaudon, Rosetta project manager at CNES in Toulouse (France)
” We continue to listen and hope even until the end of January, “he said.

Philae, after ten years of traveling as a passenger Rosetta conducted November 12, 2014 in a historic first landing on Comet 67P /Tchourioumov-Guérassimenko.

Après several unexpected rebounds, it stabilized in the shade, between two cliffs. The robot worked for 60 hours before shutting down for lack of sufficient sunlight for its solar batteries.



Philae was the victim of a difficult arrival

It was a great and exciting adventure full of discoveries, but all good things must end. Philae unresponsive to attempts to contact even when Rosetta is closer to his sidekick. The robot / laboratory no longer has the strength to turn and it should not be discussed again. This should result in the judgment of the mission that still required an investment of 20 years.

The CNES retains some hope even if it is very thin, because according to the head of project, Philippe Gaudon, chances to reconnect diminish over time. It is therefore impossible to pronounce the final judgment of the mission, but it nevertheless seems inevitable. The last contact dates back to July 9, from that date, he is plunged into a deep silence and this is probably the result of his landing in November 2014.



The two beeps may not be owned Philae

The robot / laboratory not in a favorable zone that optimizes recharge its batteries. Moreover, Philae is about to move away from the Sun, its solar panels capture less and less energy. All hopes are for now based on two very slightly beeps heard on the night of December 21 to 22 and a second was even recorded on Christmas Day. However, the teams in charge of the mission can not say with certainty about the origin of beeps, it is perhaps not Philae.



Ten years of travel

Philae, after ten years of traveling as a passenger Rosetta conducted November 12, 2014 in a historic first landing on Comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko. After several unexpected rebounds, it stabilized in the shade, between two cliffs. The robot, equipped with 10 measuring instruments designed in Grenoble, worked for 60 hours before shutting down for lack of sufficient sunlight for its solar batteries.

The Rosetta mission will end in September 2016 with landing of the latter on Tchouri.

More on Philae

Philae is a lander ESA transported to a 510 million kilometers of the Earth by the space probe Rosetta until it arises on the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko the , more than ten years after leaving Earth.

This is the first controlled landing on a comet nucleus. Its instruments send the first images ever taken from the surface of a comet and are expected to make the first analysis in situ the core composition of the comet.

Both harpoons which were anchored Philae the ground who was not deployed, the robot bounced twice before stabilizing at about a kilometer from the originally planned site, near-vertical position. For this reason, the two measuring instruments dedicated to soil analysis are not yet operational. Scientists have initially preferred time postpone commissioning to ensure not to cause rebound or rotation of the module. Indeed, the gravitational pull of the comet is much lower than that of the Earth, mass Philae gives a weight on the comet equivalent to an object with a mass of one gram to Earth .

23 h 19 , despite initial concerns about its autonomy of 60 hours, the contact is restored with Philae . The data received indicate that it has successfully conducted the first drill in a comet nucleus. To optimize its sunshine, the robot is lifted from 4 cm and operated a rotation of 35 ° on him -even. However, this maneuver was not enough to recharge the batteries immediately and Philae remains in hibernation waiting for better conditions. The comète67P / Tchourioumov-Gerasimenko passing perihelion in August 2015, sunny conditions evolve favorably during the following months.

, Philae has contacted with Rosetta for about 2 minutes to 22 hours and passed forty seconds of data that has been captured by Rosetta while flying over the lander to 20 km altitude. A maneuver of the probe was immediately programmed to allow it to fly again LG. (Source Wikipedia)

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