Rosetta’s Philae Lander is Awake
This? Oh nothing. Just that Philae – the Rosetta lander – who landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 7 months ago is now awake. I’ve been watching for this news every day now for the past couple months because as the comet gets closer and closer to the sun it will have more and more energy available to it for powering its mission. This was the original wired article that tipped me to that possibility.
Basically Philae was awake on the comet for 60 hours before it went into hibernation since last November. Yeah, you heard me correctly. Seven months of slumber and now its awake, with 28 watts of power and ready to go back to work on the comet
Hello Earth! Can you hear me? #WakeUpPhilae
— Philae Lander (@Philae2014) June 14, 2015
If you don’t recall, Philae was supposed to fire grappling hooks to latch on to the comet but its touchdown was so gentle the hooks didn’t fire. So it sent the lander back space-ward for over an hour. Until it touched down again, only to bounce for another few minutes. Before coming to rest in a much more shady area on the comet. But as far as missions go – if this doesn’t turn your head, nothing will. Landing on a comet? Haha. That’s just crazy.
Just considering that man has a lander on a comet, that is venturing closer and closer to the sun is just incredibly awe inspiring. Somehow to me, this is much much bigger than landing on the moon. Much more difficult. So my hat is off to the whole of the human race for their ingenuity. And more specifically, my hat is off to the European Space Agency who pulled off this modern miracle. Kudos guys!
