I am surprised that no one has started something on this achievement so here goes.
I think that this is one of the most important achievements of recent history. Humans have landed a spacecraft on a foreign body traveling through the solar system at astonishing speed and with such a small gravitational field it produced the kind of problems we find every year in our games.
Reading this morning, the gravitational field of a 4 kM object makes the lander’s 200 lb weight equivalent to about 1/30 of an ounce. This required the lander to screw itself into the surface of the comet to hold on. The comet is currently traveling about 23 miles/sec and is 315 million miles from earth. Imagine that! A ship traveling for more than ten years, catches up with an object traveling at 88,00 miles per hour, over 300 milllion miles from Earth and then was able to land on that moving object. Add to that, an unknown surface, temperatures of -70 on the surface and gas escaping constantly in the solar wind.
I can’t think of anything but “cool”!
It’s truly inspiring. Also, NASA’s first Orion test flight is within a couple weeks! If this flight also goes well, they will use this crew module in future flights to land more people on the moon, asteroids, and even mars.
We’re living in a freaking awesome time.
You can relive the excitement here (through Randal’s eyes)
Disclaimer: Expect to lose an hour of your life to this.
Not to diminish the magnitude of the accomplishment in any way, but Mars is traveling through the solar system far faster than that comet1.
The accomplish is novel and impressive because of a host of other factors, including but not limited to its size, gravity, terrain, rotation period, and orbit.
1at the time of landing
Not to mention the chained gravity assists!
Earth to solar orbit, earth assist, mars assist, earth assist, asteroid flyby earth assist again, another asteroid flyby, then rendezvous with the comet. Planning a trajectory with 4 assists, 2 flybys, and final orbit in mind over a 12 year period is a very easy thing to screw up
They had this thing sit silent for 10 years! Then they used gravity to sling them around, then they did some zig zags to slow down, then they landed a little pod on the comet and drilled into it!
I don’t even know I am going to eat later on today and these guys planned most of this 10 years ago!
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.
I saw the above a few days before the landing. Well worth the watch. (As a mentor, there are days I feel like the Male character)
And Philae may reawaken. We’ll have to wait til next August but if it does, be curious to see what happens then. Maybe it’ll get enough sunlight to keep it charged for a more prolonged period of observation.
Dave Lavery keeps tweeting some really interesting things about the mission.
Philae is currently in a coma.
Maybe it will wake up by the time Chury-Gera gets a coma of its own.
+2 and FTW.
I’m just concerned as to what the ejected gases will do to the lander once it reaches that stage…
Voyager 1, Galileo, MESSENGER, and Cassini all used multiple gravity assists.
Hopefully, the solar panels will be able to get sunlight before the electronics freeze. Once that happens, it’s likely game over. I don’t know the battery life in sleep mode, nor what temperature minimum the electronics can withstand. Has anyone found this information? I know without heaters, current flight hardware lasts only minutes.
On the plus side, useful science data was acquired from Philae and this will give us new insight into comets.
Oh yes, and ESA gets the award for the coolest video associated with the Rosetta mission.
I actually think it’s pretty amazing we don’t screw it up more often. How often do we lose a space probe because we commanded it into the wrong orbit? It seems like if we can get 'em into space successfully they usually make it to their final destination. The interplanetary FedEx drivers of the world do a great job getting their packages to the intended destination.
We looked this up at work because we were curious what the most ridiculous trajectory is, and it looks like MESSENGER wins.
How do we know we live in the future? Two people looked at each other and seriously asked, “Did our robot just bounce off that comet?” Maybe one day bounced comet landings will be as routine as bounced airplane landings.
I can’t verify that is true. It has been in a pretty cold part of the solar system (i.e., not on a planet) for a decade or more. The folks at ESA didn’t seem concerned about the freeze - they assume it will wake up when it get some sunlight.
Dave might know better though.
The electronics (including battery) should have been heated during that time. I found out the battery needs to be at 0 degrees C to charge, but haven’t found out anything more.
Question for anybody that doesn’t mind dating themselves:
Was Philae’s landing/surface operations more exciting than Apollo 11? How about inspirational?
I was tracking progress on that mission thinking “This is pretty cool!”
Well, Apollo 11 was a complete success. Philae however, was not. As stated above, Philae bounced upon landing, (not surprised based off of the speed of the comet) making it land in a place without sunlight, and therefore it has lost power. If the Philae was to somehow make a miracle and complete the goal of the mission, and find the answers of our orgin, then I would classify it as more amazing then Apollo 11. However, if that does not happen, then Apollo 11 was better. After all, Apollo 11 directly involved humans going into space and physically landing on something (the moon).
Eric,
I am old and don’t mind. Apollo 11 was spectacular on many levels. It was, in my opinion, the single greatest technological advancement up to that point during peacetime. Not only had we gone from blowing up rockets on the launch pad to putting three men in multiday missions in less than a decade. Additionally, this was a test that America could “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” It was a time when we as high school seniors whispered the names of our heroes, Chris Craft, Gene Kranz, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Yes Gene was and is still a big hero for me. Check out his book “Failure Is Not An Option”.
Yes this latest achievement is still a big deal for me. I didn’t tear up like I did that July night in 1969 but I was very excited. As FRC builders we should remember that the achievement of getting to a moving object in space after a ten year journey is a test that was passed with flying colors. Additionally, landing on that object that has nearly no gravitational field and still hanging on is a spectacular achievement. Think about it, 1/30 of an ounce is all that the lander had as an equivalent weight. So it bounced, it finally was able to hang on. Remember also that the solar wind is pulling debris off that rock and, as it is likely to be composed of mostly ice, so it is melting as it nears the sun. As that cold rock continues to tumble through our neighborhood, I am betting it will turn towards the sun. It is constantly changing it’s COG and I only hope that once the lander gets sunlight it doesn’t get blown off in the “wind”. I think it’s finest hour is yet to come.
And just because I am old doesn’t mean that every time a crew member is lost, that I don’t think to myself, I still would like to go. I want to be a part of this new frontier even if it means sitting at home and praying that they get there and get home. I am still a part of it and so are you.