Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
This required the lander to screw itself into the surface of the comet to hold on.
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Except unfortunately it didn't. From what I've heard, the 'harpoons' failed to fire and anchor Philae into the ground, causing it to bounce back up into space twice, at one point an entire kilometer above the surface of the comet, which took two hours. Luckily, 67P's gravity pulled it back down, but the new landing site was hundreds of meters away from the planned site. Scientists still haven't located its final resting position, but based on photos from the probe, they believe it ended up landing next to a cliff, and leaning askew on a rock. This caused its solar panels to get much less solar power than planned, and as a result the battery died, bringing the probe into sleep mode.
However, this is still a huge accomplishment, and
according to BBC, "the probe managed to complete more than 80% of its planned primary science campaign on the surface", including drilling into the comet's surface, and was able to send its data back to Earth before losing contact. Scientists are hoping that as the comet approaches the sun (which sounds like next August), Philae will get enough light to reboot and charge its battery again.