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Discussion: 80 comments
“…ESA DG Dordain: We landed, Philae survived landing, in right place, and have a radio link, and power onboard. Instruments are working.”
Appears to be upright and functioning fine. The prospect of lots more goodies to examine. Shame about the harpoons. It might all look different in the morning. MUPUS and CIVAS data will be the crucial decider for what actions can be taken with the harpoons and drill. Only 4cm of displacement of the “shock absorber”, barely a dent in the surface, or Philae is knee deep in dust. If she has bounced though one would think the surface has a measure of resilience.
The team seem to have come up with all the answers so far, a bit of brainstorming and they’ll sort it out. Do the initial science, charge the batteries, fire the harpoons and bounce somewhere else.
Maybe the surface just below the dust is so hard, firing the harpoons bounced Philae, the cold gas jet did not work remember.
Hi Robin. There seems to be a complex ‘two hours’ history to be told. My little daughter couldn’t less than smile to the possibilities.
Maravilloso
So far so good.
wow
Pictures, please !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I heard them say that the radar was working on and off.
The most breathtakingly audacious enterprise. You just landed a device on a comet 500 million kilometres away after a 10 year journey, incorporating not one, but two gravity assists and an approach orbit that was as beautiful as it was fiendish.
Everyone involved can be immensely proud.
Great day for science – congratulations from Australia.
Four.
Four gravity assists, Earth, Earth, Mars, Earth.
And then landing on the comet twice. The second time not quite intentionally, but it’s the count that counts 😉
When will you post images taken from Philae after it landed?
Well done its a great achievement
As Ollie says to Stanley, “Now we’re getting somewhere!”
How hard can it be? Lets see, something like 20 years of work, millions of euros and thousands of people ^^ . Relax, we’re all eager to see those pics, but they had transmission problems and right now Philae is out reach until Thursday.
Great Job Guys.
I am also very excited to find out what really happened down on the comet surface!! On the other side I do know that data have to be put together carefully…and yes, human brain could be exhausted after 12+ hours of work. Have a good sleep, and lets see how the things will be tommorow!
Where are the pictures from the landing site?
Its not a comet….. its a space station….
Greatest achievement since Apollo XI, truly amazing, congratulation to the ESA from San Diego, CA!
If they are going to have fun on the surface then I suppose it’s more of a playstation. No, let’s not go down that route…this is serious stuff! Dare to dream…what an adventure?
agreed
Osiris can obviously not make any image of the lander. It does not have the resolution to see the lander in his images…
The Osiris NAC has a pixel resolution about 20 mm side for each kilometer of distance, for a short time it was about 10 kilometer above the lander. The lander has about a square meter projection size and at 10 kilometer altitude i would cover about 25 pixels all of them brightly shining and clearly detectable, later when at 30 kilometer altidude it still almost fills 4 pixels and as those are a lot brighter the the surrounding area it is still possible to detecgt Philaes position. If this was or will be done is another issue
@Cometstalker
Communication with Philae takes an hour. This isn’t a live webcam shot or anything – this isn’t the live communication we had with the Moon landing. It’s also spotty and there are periods where no communication is had.
We shouldn’t be impatient about these things either. People need to analyse data coming from the spacecraft to make sure they have their facts straight, before they blurt it out to the world. I mean, it’s not even been a day. Calm down.
You don’t have to wait for the loopback until you send the next command. The commands can be pipelined and the links can also be full duplex. To wait for a respond of a command takes one hour but it is not always needed to be in a servo loop.
until you notice something goes wrong, something breaks, and you cant stop it for at least an hour. better safe than sorry in the case o a 12 year+ mission and millions of dollars spent. be patient, young one.
@ Cometstalker – I would say they are doing a very good job. The telemetry was intermittent from the lander according to the spaceflight site: https://www.spaceflight101.com/play-by-play-philae-landing.html Note one way light time is 28-minutes. Hence to send a single command and expect a response takes an hour. Hence it is very slow to do anything and expect 100% knowledge. The distances we are talking about here are out of this world, as is the knowledge and conditions. This is an incredible event and I predict we will learn a LOT.
Simply breathtaking ! Incredible- you should all be so proud!
Hi
Im a swedish ambient musician and want to use the music you created from the magnetic oscillation in a pure new ambient installation. I create space music and want to build upon real space frequencies
Best regards,
Alexander Forselius
musician in Sweden
https://open.spotify.com/user/drsounds
Cometstalker,
Rosetta is the only link between Philae and the Earth. Currently, Rosetta is below the comet’s horizon from the point of view of Philae. That means that not only cannot Philae transmit information or pictures to Rosetta, Rosetta can’t see Philae on the ground.
Rosetta will, once again, be above the horizon at Philae’s position tomorrow morning CET. Then the two can talk, and then they’ll be able to do all those things you’re suggesting.
It’s not a cover-up. It’s just orbital mechanics.
Greatest day for Mankind part II. No matter what race creed or country ….Great Job we are all proud of you.
Hopefully Philae hasn’t a ruff night…
even if they show a bad image, a first image is a first image.they show images from far but, actual proof its landed…. they say it happened but actual proof….
Six hours ago in a tv news program at 19:30 CET two pictures were shown of the surface of the comet, that were said to be from Philae after the landing. I still can’t find them at the ESA Rosetta web pages…
Can’t wait to see more pictures! What an amazing feat!!!
Emozionante, grazie Esa!
My fear is that, for whatever reason, after Philae had done its low gravity bounce, it didn’t land upright (worst cases on its side or maybe even upside down)?
The flywheel is able to raise it up again if your suggested scenario is an issue.
Astounding achievement; the simple word ‘congratulations’ seems so inadequate.
Note: I am aged 99 years, therefore I can remember, t ages 4 and 5, on hot evenings, watching the moon with Father (an astronomy ‘tragic’ from the late 1890s) telling of the mystery of the bright moon above…..now — your accomplishments solving mysteries that Father could not have thought possible leave me spellbound.. Magic!. Wonderful
Parabéns a toda a equipe! Um feito fantástico!
I need information now. Thank You
To Send a command to the lander takes 28 minutes, to perform this command some minutes and then the result is transmitted to the orbiter in fast speed intermediate stored for transfer back to earth in slow motion. So, got the point?
Check this link for the high resolution ESA image shortly before the touch down.
https://science.orf.at/stories/1749285/
Fine. You do it, then.
It’s now several hours after the landing and no more info, no pics…..
I read that there were problems with the harpoon but that it has now worked…..I also heard on the radio that the first pics from the comet surface had come in….so why on there? don’t hide your light under a bushel guys, you’ve odne an incredible job, let the world know about it?
Sounds like the harpoons fired (they initial said so in their excitement) and that re-launched the lander for a 2 hour 500 meter high joyride and then it landed a second time and they wisely didn’t refire the ‘poons and it made a second much briefer hop to a settle, somewhere. The briefing later today should be interesting!
Billions not millions and hard was the development and mission accomplishment. To manipulate instruments and tools that you are trained to know to the very last detail Is NOT hard. To get impressed is great but to be able to select what to be impressed of is a fraction better. Has anyone here in the blog yet congratulated the initiator of this mission that was an idea formed a long time before the most of the visitors in this blog were borne? Now that is impressive innovation the rest is engineering and Now comes the science that might be impressive in a few years, dont loose the perspective. A lot of people want to stand in the glory and sunshine and thats fine. Still its the Base of the pyramid that caries its tiny top and the base always stay in the shade doing what they always do well for this mission and other projects as well prior and past this one.
Amazing, can’t wait until morning! What knowledge will we be blessed with tomorrow and the days that follow?? Don’t think I will be able to sleep, good luck trying!!thank you for the once in a lifetime event!!
Honestly this was the worst space coverage in the history. Who was directing this show? very embarrassing for ESA management.
Well if this would have been a tiny routine not of essence mission like put a small satellite into earth orbit it would fit the bill just fine.
BUT as this is a solar-system first ever mission out ranging any Mars or Moon landings so far and so many persons world wide watching live it was far from well presented saying it a bit polite.
Why are there no pictures from the surface and (more importantly), why is there no explanation of their absence? We were told they would be one of the first things to come. Is something wrong? If so, shouldn’t this be forthcoming? The silence is wrong.
Just because the comments don’t make sense to you does not mean there is a conspiracy.
WOW!!!! Great time! Thanks to all scientists in ESA!! Greeting!
Most Sexy Mission Ever in European space science
Apparently the panoramic camera photo’s came out with dark horizontal bands , could be anything , interference , or maybe damage from bouncing but that seems unlikely given it’s landing speed , CIVA photo’s were , if I’m reading their time line correctly meant to be up an hour or so after the landing .
Already people are saying they have seen castles and antennae , even a space snake . It’s quite comical .
Can’t wait to see the photo from the surface looking out over a very close uneven horizon , now THAT’S a poster
Hello! What I’m absolutely missing are Pictures & Videos from the landing. It’s not very smart to send pictures from the control room and from discussions which arelasting minutes and minutes. What normal People – and I’m counting myself to this Kind of human species – are interested are pictures from the reality. Ive I’ve overseen something please excuse me. Regards – Thomas
Wow what a great day. So proud we keep leaping forward. When i told a fellow at work what you has done he wanted to know if you were going to blow it up now. Lol. We’re all in a diffrent place. GOD BLESS YOU AND PEACE TO ALL
..that all sounds not so good….
Stay calm, conetstalker. Not every gap of information is a cover up. As far as I understood, Rosetta was setting below the horizon of the landing site after landing and it will take a while before it is in position to use the sensors
Hi P. The post landing data might be crippled but prior to landing all planed commands are running and data was streaming. So where are the for the audience extracted bits and pieces? Possible put on ice until all got free from adrenaline and stress hormones. I think the resource planing for this very special day was too far from optimal and this caused the bad situation when something went wrong its mainly a lack of experience and next time i hope NASA is on the scene as so far they do this kind of presentation in a more experienced and professional way. ESA management has a lot to learn and i hope they will and not start to fight internally as this is often is the case that i had to witness at a few occasions.
It is the best method to generate rumours and unqualified critisim if you say nothing. If you would just say: We have a problem this and that, then everybody understands this. and waits for more from you. Failure is part of the game here. I have the feeling, that ESA wants only present someone “perfect” or nothing. The politicians and managers told their speeches, the champangne is drunken, so lets go back to business. And this is never perfect. Else it looks too simple!
Good luck , Flo
Cometstalker, hold your horses. Yes, these people must be exhausted, and I find it very unfair to make any prepreciative comments about them.
That having been said, I too am disappointed with the change in information flow towards the public. That information flow had been great (via the blog etc.) right until yesterday, but then everything went quiet. For people unable to follow the livestream, there is hardly any information other than the very fact that Philae has touched down.
There are many many people out here who would appreciate a few more bits of information. Keep up the great work and all the best for Philae and Rosetta!
I have not heard of taking into account the movement of the surface as the lander touches down. With a radius of 2km, rotation period of 12h, the surface speed is around 0.3m/s, compared to touchdown speed of around 1m/s. As one foot of the three is sure to set down a fraction before the others, in the absence of immediate anchoring, it will rotate, in fact the reaction wheel will tend to make it tip over. Lucky to be upright on the surface . .
Actually it was encountered for as the trajectory is not a straight line but elliptic, the navigators so far never failed and from now on they can relax a bit as the rest of the orbit is routine for them. Their next challenge will be the eventual soft landing at the end of the mission. This will be a second triumph for flight dynamics and navigation, they really are the best so far and if the rest of the teams reaches this level as well as the management gets i bit more open this might be something special.
Well, they managed to land it there in the first place: what have you done lately, Cometstalker?
There are at least two pictures of the surface made but not officially published. It was shown on dutch TV yesterday evening. The program is called De Wereld Draait Door and can be seen at 46:23 and 46:55
Look at:
https://www.npo.nl/de-wereld-draait-door/12-11-2014/VARA_101370625
I can’t find any final briefing on the link, the last video ends after Philae separation.
Congrats to the team at ESA and all involved. There is always bumps in any technical project and there are always people like Cometstalker who bark useless abuse and offer little encouragement. Fingers crossed for some good news over the next few days. Those that can comprehend the difficulties you have overcome celebrate what you have achieved.
yeah, how hard can it be!
it’s not like its rocket science…
-_-
This is an unprecedented mission. Who are you to criticize?
Dear Cometstalker, your comment is a bit on the edge of being disrespectful. The people at ESA have just accomplished an extra-ordinary accomplishment. I’m not an insider, and although it may not make a ton of sense to you, it does not take the full capacity of a normal brain to figure out what may be happening now. First, when Philae is hidden from Rosetta, no transmissions are occurring, and the relative rotational period of the two ships is several hours, forbidding information transfers over long periods of time. Then, data transmission from 500M km is much less than the average internet line, and much data is being transfered – incuding data that we’re not interested into, but is vital for the mission- so it takes some time. Finally, before any information gets to you, it has to be interpreted and put in good shape because we’re not capable of reading the instrumentation outputs by ourselves. This is likely what the team at ESA is doing now, besides hopefully sleeping a short night after yesterday’s long & tense day.
My sincere congratulations to ESA for the news coverage of this event, and good luck with Philae.
Hi Imagez, You are right and i know very well what is going on, therefore my frank comments serve a purpose and this is to alter the behaviour of the way our property is locked away and misused to gain personal advantages for those who are settled at the treasure box. To extrapolate what would have happened if all of it worked with a 100% perfection is not hard to do also then realise that the tiny glitches caused an almost panic tells a lot if you are able to read between the lines.
Hi James. Thanks a lot for your kind and emotive message!!
So proud of ESA, go Philae!
Cheers from São Paulo, Brazil!!
You may find some photos here, they are there since yesterday night. The question is, are they for real?
https://www.corriere.it/scienze/14_novembre_12/rosetta-pronta-all-atterraggio-cometa-via-libera-manovra-aeb7d6d4-69f8-11e4-96be-d4ee9121ff4d.shtml
i am watching the brand new pic. congratulations. What is that wire i can see bottom right? is it part of the harpoons system? it throws its own shadow
Congratulations on this delicate, inspiring celestial rendezvous! Very patient, careful work on the part of ESA scientists and engineers. Any irregularities or difficulties now must be resolved by more patient, careful work. (P.S., stop feeding the grumpy troll. Just makes him hungrier…)
Quite right you are;)
Amazing achievement, well done all at ESA/ESOC.
On a different note, I’d like to ask those people on this forum to stop demanding photos/information, etc. NOW NOW NOW GIMME GIMME.
For heaven’s sake people – learn some patience, maybe a little humility, and a LOT of understanding for the Rosetta team who are doing a great job under pressure. Relax, everybody: the info will be posted when it’s posted….
I’m proud of ESA !!! This is the best in 10 years
Well done ESA/ESOC brings back memories of your highly successful Huygens Probe project. I’m sure the science team will do wonderfully well after given months to compare and evaluate all of the data.