{"id":16256,"date":"2015-06-18T18:34:14","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T10:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/for-comet-scientists-elation-and-redemption-at-philaes-wakeup\/"},"modified":"2015-06-18T18:34:14","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T10:34:14","slug":"for-comet-scientists-elation-and-redemption-at-philaes-wakeup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/for-comet-scientists-elation-and-redemption-at-philaes-wakeup\/","title":{"rendered":"For comet scientists, elation and redemption at Philae\u2019s wakeup"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Philae_on_the_comet_Front_view\"
Artist\u2019s concept of Philae. Credit: ESA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Research teams across Europe spent the last half-year meticulously going through a wish list of experiments for the Philae comet lander without knowing whether they would ever get a chance to execute the tasks.<\/p>\n

With Philae now awake after a seven-month slumber, scientists are eager to turn on the lander\u2019s instruments, take fresh images and eventually attempt to sample a block of organic dust and ice perched just out of the probe\u2019s grasp.<\/p>\n

Jean-Pierre Bibring, Philae\u2019s chief scientist, said the dishwasher-sized lander can rotate to put the cometary material within reach of its drill. But such movement is risky, and mission planners only want to command the rotation when they are sure Philae is able to charge its battery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last seven months, we were not just praying for the lander being back,\u201d said Barbara Cozzoni, an engineer at Philae\u2019s control center in Cologne, Germany. \u201cWe worked a lot so we have could some operations ready. We will start with what we call low-cost, low-risk (activities).\u201d<\/p>\n

Engineers will first have to wrestle control of the lander. Philae\u2019s Rosetta mothership \u2014 the centerpiece of Europe\u2019s comet mission \u2014 is moving to a new orbit to improve the communications link with the probe on the surface.<\/p>\n

Rosetta dropped Philae to the nucleus of comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November, but the landing craft bounced off the comet and settled a half-mile from its intended touchdown zone. Philae ended up lodged against a cliff eclipsing sunlight, and the solar-powered spacecraft ran out of juice 60 hours after landing.<\/p>\n

\"The
The likely orientation of Rosetta\u2019s lander, Philae, in a visualization of a topographic model of the comet\u2019s surface. Credit: ESA\/Rosetta\/Philae\/CNES\/FD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists were optimistic the hibernating probe would wake up as comet 67P streaked closer to the sun, and Philae finally radioed Earth through Rosetta on June 13, three months after controllers started listening for new signals from the lander.<\/p>\n

The comet is heading for perihelion \u2014 the point in its orbit closest to the sun \u2014 on Aug. 13. Rosetta and Philae are conducting the most extensive survey ever made of a comet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (comet) is 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) across,\u201d said Mark McCaughrean, a senior science adviser at the European Space Agency, which oversees the Rosetta mission. \u201cIt looks like it\u2019s made of rock, but we now know that it has density less than that of water \u2014 half the density of water. It\u2019 a mixture of ice and dust and complex molecules \u2014 carbon-bearing molecules \u2014 and a completely bizarre landscape in which we see boulders sitting on the surface at apparently bizarre angles. We see plains of dust and rivulets of material.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pits and fissures on the comet\u2019s nucleus \u2014 dormant when the body was far away from the sun in the cold outer solar system \u2014 are firing up as the tiny world encounters warmer conditions.<\/p>\n

Philae\u2019s science team is hopeful the lander will make measurements from the comet\u2019s surface when it is most active in August and September.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis extraordinary journey is by no means over,\u201d McCaughrean said. \u201cWe are not at a dead object. We are at a living, breathing dragon of a comet, which is coming to life as we come close to the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once engineers establish a stable communications link with Philae, the science team will ease the lander back into action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to improve the connection between Rosetta and the lander,\u201d Bibring said in a press briefing Wednesday at the Paris Air Show. \u201cWe are marginal in the duration of the link now. We are in the few tens of seconds to minutes. We want to go to tens of minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Members
Members of the Rosetta and Philae teams brief reporters at the Paris Air Show on the status of the mission. Credit: ESA\u2013P. Sebirot, 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First up for scientists will be to activate the lander\u2019s low-power instruments. At the top of that list are Philae\u2019s magnetometer and sensors to deduce the physical properties \u2014 temperature, texture, density and electrical conductivity \u2014 of rock and dust at the landing site, according to Philippe Gaudon, the lander\u2019s project manager at CNES, the French space agency.<\/p>\n

If ground teams are satisfied \u2014 and if Philae\u2019s power status continues to improve \u2014 the next step will be to switch on probe\u2019s cameras, potentially beaming back fresh views of the the lander\u2019s treacherous surroundings.<\/p>\n

Philae\u2019s descent camera and panoramic imaging system returned photos of the craft\u2019s landing sequence and final resting place before the lander went into hibernation in November.<\/p>\n

Gas analyzers mounted on Philae could then be powered up to sniff the dust around the spacecraft in search of organic molecules, and potentially amino acids, the building blocks of life-supporting proteins.<\/p>\n

Engineers will also resume a ranging experiment using radio signals sent between Rosetta and Philae. The transmissions serve two purposes: studying the comet\u2019s internal structure and helping scientists pinpoint the lander\u2019s exact location, which remains unconfirmed.<\/p>\n

Using signals from Philae\u2019s November landing and high-resolution imagery from Rosetta\u2019s camera, officials say they have narrowed the craft\u2019s location to an ellipse about the size of a football field.<\/p>\n

The final instruments to be turned on will be Philae\u2019s X-ray spectrometer \u2014 called APXS \u2014 positioned on a boom extended to the comet\u2019s surface, along with the lander\u2019s sampling drill \u2014 named SD2.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last activity should be the most risky,\u201d Gaudon said. \u201cThat means to do a second deployment of APXS after rotation of the lander to optimize the distance between the platform and the soil. We should be able, with APXS, to touch the soil, and we should be able, with SD2, to retrieve a sample.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tentative plan calls for the sample to be imaged by Philae\u2019s cameras, then dumped into ovens inside the main body of the spacecraft for heating and chemical analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we can do maybe not in the next weeks, but certainly in the next months,\u201d Gaudon said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The first two images from Philae\u2019s CIVA panoramic camera after landing on comet 67P on Nov. 12, 2014. Credit: ESA\/Rosetta\/Philae\/CIVA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sun is shining on Philae\u2019s body-mounted power-generating solar panels more than twice as long each day than in November, and the comet \u2014 which rotates every 12.4 hours \u2014 is closer to the sun, further boosting the energy output from the solar cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the comet has come closer to the sun, we have gained at least a factor of four in terms of energy on the solar panels,\u201d Gaudon said.<\/p>\n

Philae transmitted useful science data from eight of its 10 instruments during the initial phase of the mission in November. The lander ran out of power before it could complete experimental runs with the X-ray spectrometer and drill.<\/p>\n

Scientists now have a second chance, a prospect that Bibring and other members of the Philae team said they expected. Nevertheless, scientists could not be sure the lander would ever wake up.<\/p>\n

Assuming the lander still has all its functions, researchers have a bounty of discoveries looming just an arm\u2019s length from Philae.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know exactly by which angle we should rotate for the drill now to access the surface and even the subsurface,\u201d Bibring said. \u201cThat\u2019s part of the game here \u2014 that if we wakeup and if we have the capability to go up to where we want to go, which is to have access to this material, we know how do do it \u2026 These are the carbon-rich materials. They\u2019re everywhere, and they\u2019re at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s concept of Philae. Credit: ESA Research teams across Europe spent the last half-year meticulously going through a wish list of experiments for the Philae comet lander without knowing whether they would ever get a chance to execute the tasks. With Philae now awake after a seven-month slumber, scientists are eager to turn on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3097,3098,3573,831,4022,3609,3373],"class_list":["post-16256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-comet","tag-comet-67p-churyumov-gerasimenko","tag-comet-landing","tag-european-space-agency","tag-paris-air-show","tag-philae","tag-rosetta"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}