Rosetta Mission: Philae still does not respond but the plays continue – ladepeche.fr

The phone rang Philippe Gaudon a lot yesterday. A little death in the soul, the Rosetta project leader at CNES, the French space agency, had to repeat that yes the hopes of communicating with the robot Philae diminish but not its mission is not over. In Toulouse, engineers SONC (center of scientific operations and navigation) remain attentive to the slightest signal.

The little robot, sent to the nucleus of the comet Tchouri n November 12, 2014 has been heard from since July 9, 2015. Scientists have so far been able to work only on the data transmitted by Philae during its first 60 hours spent on the comet after a failed landing.

Since November 10, the Rosetta orbiter down and maneuver to try to hang an affair with the lander. In vain.

Philae becomes unresponsive for several months, is this the end of the mission?

No. The Rosetta orbiter down and we always remain attentive until the end of January. Since mid-December we are tuned continuously. But it’s true that our hopes to reconnect with Philae and doing science is fifty times less that a month ago. We are still on the comet was but day length shortens, the Sun is farther away, the amount of energy received by Philae decreases. We received two beeps, we could stop there.

Do you know if these two beeps come Philae?

Not really, there may be several explanations but these two beeps, the night of December 21 to 22 and 25 December, intervened when Rosetta was turned to the antennas of Philae. These two values ​​give hope that Philae is trying to send us something, but those few seconds are not enough to hang a communication, for that, we would need three minutes.

Why continue to listen ?

As the comet moves away from the Sun, Rosetta is expected to lower its altitude and approach the kernel regularly. Last week Rosetta was between 90 and 110 kilometers above sea level, 10 km more than earned it would still worth taking. Since July Philae may be responsible for much of dust, which reduces the signal. Our colleagues in Cologne (Germany) estimated that the temperature aboard Philae would suffice until January 15, but we will listen to fifteen days more. We have little hope, but we are still working.