Philae status report: “Time is running out”

This text is based on the report published today by the German Aerospace Center, DLR. Rosetta’s lander Philae has remained silent since 9 July 2015. With every passing day, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is getting further and further away from the Sun, and as such, temperatures are falling on the comet's surface. Things are getting critical for Philae: conditions are predicted to be “lander-hostile” – too cold – by the end of January. But the lander team are going to try another method to trigger a reponse from Philae: on 10 January they will send a command, via Rosetta, to attempt to make Philae’s momentum wheel switch on. "Time is running out, so we want to exhaust all possibilities," says Stephan Ulamec, Philae lander manager at DLR. Philae’s momentum wheel ensured that it was stable during its descent from the orbiter on 12 November, 2014. If the command is successfully received and executed, the hope is that it might shift the lander’s position. "At best, Philae might shake its itself free, making it better aligned with the Sun, and clearing dust from the solar panels," explains Philae technical manager Koen Geurts at DLR’s lander control centre. But it is also possible that the lander may not be able to respond to the command. It remains unclear as to what state Philae is in since it last sent data about its health in July, but the DLR team believes that one of the lander’s two transmitters and one of the two receivers have failed. The second transmitter and receiver apparently no longer function smoothly, either. The team also hopes that the lander is not covered with too much dust generated by the active comet through the perihelion months. "The silence of Philae unfortunately does not bode well," says Stephan. In the night of 21-22 December, 2015, the receiver on […]

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