Philae makes historic landing on a comet!

[Peter Lemkin]

Might as well risk it. The batteries will get flat pretty soon if the panels cannot collect light then they wont be able to move anyway and will lose all their data too.

I think they will take the risk - and they have to decide and do the needed calculations [rather unplanned ones] soon. But, there is an up side too.....the comet is headed toward the sun and soon the place it is in will be bathed in more light from the sun and it is built to re-awaken when that happens......so all is not yet lost. Only due to the amazingly low gravity [compared to Earth] did the two bounces [maybe more] the craft took left it rather unscathed, if on its side. It is functioning normally even in its strange position and location - exactly the kind of location they spent weeks trying to avoid in choosing the landing site.

It is IMHO the most important space mission ever - as it is believed by many [including myself] that life itself and water which brings life here on Earth all came from comets - and Philae is built to test for life's precursors and water, among other things. The comet is a snapshot of what our area of the universe was like about 5 Billion years ago...long before the evil among some of the species that came along on our little blue dot in space started to mess things up in a grand way.

:: ::prison:: ::face.palm::

Original landing site in photo [taken from 40 m!].....compare that with second image of real photo with craft drawn in by computer of where it is now.

[Peter Lemkin]

Rosetta mission outlines Philae lander's predicaments

Nov 13, 2014 1 comment

Comet crasher: the view from Philae's final landing spot
Yesterday, scientists working on the Rosetta mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) made history when their "Philae" module touched down safely on the surface of comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko. Since then, the mission scientists have been in communication with the lander and it has emerged that Philae bounced twice, moving nearly 1 km back out into space, and that it touched down on the comet three times before settling at a location nearly 1 km away from the target site. Its current position is precarious and does not provide its solar panels with enough light to operate as planned. Despite its rocky landing, some instruments on Philae are running and the team says it is continuing to receive "great data and images".

X marked the perfect spot: first touchdown close-up
Philae first landed yesterday at 15:33 GMT before it bounced up and touched down again at 17:26 GMT, then bounced up once more, finally coming to rest at 17:33 GMT. It settled on the comet surface at a currently unconfirmed location, about 1 km from its target site. The multiple bounces are likely to have occurred because the lander's harpoon, which should have anchored Philae onto the surface, did not fire. The lander's position is also precarious, as initial data and images show that it has settled in the shadow of a cliff. It currently has one of its three feet in "open space", rather than on the surface. Although Philae's ultimate location is less than optimal, its first landing spot seen in the image above that was taken by the OSIRIS instrument on Rosetta from a distance of 30 km in September was right on target.

Bizarre orientation

In a press briefing held today, Stephan Ulamec, who is the project manager for the lander, said that panoramic images from Philae suggest that it is on the far side of a large crater in the previously considered but ultimately rejected landing site B. According to Ulamec, this would explain the lander's "bizarre orientation". This location also means that Philae's solar panels are not getting as much solar radiation as anticipated, forcing the module to run on its batteries, which should last for about 60 h. "The lander is relying on solar energy…we're getting one and half hours of sunlight when we expected six or seven. This has an impact on our energy budget," said Ulamec.
Although it is currently stable, Philae is not fixed to the surface because of the failure of its harpoons. Trying to "refire" the harpoons at this stage could be an even riskier business as the procedure could throw the lander back out into space.

Double trouble: first panoramic image from Philae
Ulamec also said that the team would have to be wary about carrying out one of its main scientific objectives drilling into the comet to collect and analyse samples because this could affect the lander's stability and tip it over. Thankfully, Philae was designed to achieve this, along with its other key objectives, within its initial 60 h battery life, which will end by Saturday. Jean-Pierre Bibring, who is the chief scientist for the lander, said that studying the organic and isotopic compositions of such samples is key and that there are a few instruments at Philae's disposal that could achieve that goal.
While Bibring was hopeful that they could get the green light to begin drilling tomorrow, he also cautioned that they "don't want to start drilling and end the mission", so it is more likely that the Rosetta scientists will take a chance on drilling towards the end of the 60-hour period.

Close encounters: a view of comet 67P from 40 m away
Despite the many issues that the Rosetta scientists are trying to resolve, Philae is already relaying a wealth of data. It has acquired the magnetic-field measurements of the comet and has been "sniffing" its surroundings. The image above was taken by Philae's Rosetta Lander Imaging System when it was 40 m above the surface. The close-up shows a loose, dusty surface covered in rocks that range from millimetres to metres in size, according to Stefano Mottola from the Lander Control Centre in Cologne, Germany. He also pointed out the small fuzzy patch near the top right hand corner of the image, saying that it showed an active process on the comet with "the dust being mobilized" near the small rock. Although this initial site showed the "dirty snowball" image we have of comets, Philae's current spot shows a rather hard, rocky surface, giving the researchers plenty to ponder on.
The next 36 hours will be absolutely crucial to Philae's mission as the team attempts to carry out all of its main objectives, manoeuvre it out of the shadows and try get its third foot to touch the ground.

[Peter Lemkin]

More than 10 years ago the European Space Agency (Esa) launched Rosetta with a plan to slingshot the spacecraft around Earth until it caught up with comet 67P, the final destination of a vessel meant to make human history in outer space. The spacecraft carried a lander, Philae, designed to touch down on the comet, but Philae's landing did not go quite as planned.
What was supposed to happen
ESA scientists hoped the comet would be a relatively even potato shape with plenty of flat surfaces suitable for landing on the 2.5-mile wide heap of ice, rock, dust and vapours, hurtling along at more than 11 miles per second. Rosetta's controllers back on Earth tried to aim and time Philae's release so that the comet's weak gravity would slowly pull the lander to the site. Scientists had no control of Philae during its descent.
Not far from the surface, controllers would order Philae's thrusters to fire from on top of the lander, pushing Philae toward the comet. Once on the surface, they would send a command to shoot two harpoons from the lander into the comet's crust, to prevent bouncing and secure it in place. The harpoons were also meant to counteract the plumes of gas and vapour that could knock Philae around, and will increasingly jet out of the comet as it approaches the sun.
With about 60 hours of battery life, Philae would start snapping photos and doing experiments, and although the comet's path would occasionally take Agilkia into shadow, solar panels mounted on Philae could recharge the battery and keep the lander busy into March 2015.

What did happen
Comet 67P turned out not to be shaped like a potato, as scientists hoped, and instead had an asymmetrical look "of a rubber duck". Scientists identified Agilka, a relatively open area about a third of a square mile as their best landing site, but had to manoeuvre Rosetta with thrusters for longer than expected to get it into the right spot for Philae's drop.
Before releasing the lander, they discovered early on Wednesday morning that a key thruster designed to press Philae down onto the surface of the comet was not working. They decided to go ahead with the landing anyway and launched the probe from the Rosetta mother ship at 8.35am GMT.

Philae, rotating as it fell toward the surface, landed just about on target. The nitrogen thrusters fired, as expected, but the harpoons did not deploy, and in the extremely low gravity the lander bounced high up above the surface to a different location, where it bounced again. It took about two hours for Philae to settle after its initial touchdown. It came to rest around a kilometre from its intended landing site but the scientists are not yet sure exactly where.
The lander manager, Dr Stephan Ulamec, told the BBC:

We are still not anchored. We are sitting with the weight of the lander somehow on the comet. We are pretty sure where we landed the first time, and then we made quite a leap. Some people say it is in the order of one kilometre high. And then we had another small leap, and now we are sitting there, and transmitting, and everything else is something we have to start understanding and keep interpreting.

Philae has so far lost and regained contact with mission control as expected, but scientists don't know where exactly the lander is; the pattern of radio signals is one of the ways they're measuring the two bounces. The first photo ever taken from a comet's surface shows crags and a rock face, suggesting the lander is either facing the rim of a crater, against a cliff or at the bottom of a hole.
Mission control says the lander is using solar energy, but "we're getting one and a half hours of sunlight when we expected six or seven". Philae's variety of automated experiments have also begun, sending photos and data back through Rosetta to Esa.
What they can try to fix it
Although the landing gear was designed to "hop" Philae if necessary, it's not clear whether ice screws on the lander's legs have anchored the craft in such a way to make any movement feasible. A hop could topple the lander or shoot it up off the surface and away into space, as could an attempt to fire the harpoons.
The lander has drills as well, meant to investigate the comet, and scientists are weighing whether to deploy these drills to secure or nudge the lander and gather data before the battery dies. But for every action there is a reaction, and drilling puts the probe at high risk of falling over.
Philae is "definitely not in the open", the mission manager, Fred Jansen, told reporters, and if it's stuck in a ditch then time is running out to perform experiments. With limited access to the sun, plans to use the lander for the next few months will have to change dramatically. Ulamec said the team will try to "modify the orientation" of the solar panels to get more sunlight, and that they're changing Rosetta's orbit to improve communication with Philae. Rosetta is also helping triangulate Philae's location with a radar instrument called Consert.
What if they can't fix it

The mission goes on as long as it can. Even if Philae turns out to be wedged in a comet's cranny, experiments on the comet's gases and compounds will proceed powered by whatever energy the solar panels can provide.
As Dr Geraint Morgan explained to Open University, "we will sniff the comet no matter what happens" meaning that the probe will still examine molecules drifting up from the surface. Many of the experiments are preprogrammed, and the Philae mission could help determine whether comets brought water to Earth, and whether they seeded our planet with chemical compounds ("organics") that are the building blocks of life. Comets are ancient remnants of the solar system's earliest moments, and even 60 hours of data could give a glimpse into what happened as the planets formed (or before they formed). The lander would have to drill to perform some of these experiments, but as time runs out the scientists will probably accept those risks.
Philae may fade beyond human contact in the next few days, but Rosetta will probably keep flying round its comet for two more years, even as the comet spews more and more water, dust and gas, burning up as its orbit (and Rosetta's) get closer to the sun.

[David Guyatt]

It is not my wish or intention to hijack this thread, but I do feel it should be pointed out that the name of the lander, "Philae" can be no coincidence.

The choice of this name is is a salute to the Egyptian Goddess ISIS, who had a major temple dedicated to her on the Egyptian island of Philae.

Not just that but the name of the space probe that took the lander to the comet, Rosetta, is named after the Egyptian Rosetta Stone, which was discovered (or rather re-discovered) in 1799, by a soldier attached to Napoleon Bonaparte's first expedition to Egypt (Bonaparte's association with the Freemasons was via the Grand Orient of France).

And it can be no chance whatsoever that NASA, the American sister organization of the the ESA, the European Space Agency, also almost always use ancient religious myth to name their missions.

What we have here, at the very least, is Freemasons choosing the name of and directing space missions. It probably is Templar and Rosicrucian also, inasmuch as all three are associated under Freemasonry.

The question, therefore, is why are secret occult societies running space agencies and missions? I find it curious...

[Magda Hassan]

The question, therefore, is why are secret occult societies running space agencies and missions? I find it curious...

Very interesting David. I suppose it is because the whole of NASA was made up of imported high ranking Nazis.

[David Guyatt]

Then yes, but not now, Magda. I think NASA and ESA are today riddled with members of secret societies at the highest levels, and if this is the case - and it certainly looks that way - the question would be why?

Of course, Freemasonic teaching are very heavily influenced by astronomical and astrological symbolism and fact.

[Peter Lemkin]

The latest good news and not-so-good news....on the whole, better than expected from 48 hours ago!...

[Peter Lemkin]

The Philae lander on the distant comet 67P has sent another stream of data back to Earth before losing power.
Everything expected from the little probe was delivered, just before low battery power dropped it into standby mode.
The robot is shadowed by a cliff and cannot get enough light on to its solar panels to recharge its systems.
Engineers fear this contact may have been its last - certainly for a while.
A tweet from the official Philae lander account said: "I'll tell you more about my new home, comet 67P soon… zzzzz."
Philae descended to the comet's surface on Wednesday - the first time in history that a space mission has made a soft landing on a comet.
The next opportunity to talk to Philae will come at around 11:00 GMT on Saturday, when the orbiting Rosetta satellite - which delivered it to the 4km-wide "ice mountain" - comes over the horizon.
But with only 1.5 hours of sunshine falling on the robot during the comet's 12-hour day, it seems doubtful the battery will have recovered enough performance to complete the radio link.
Engineers did manage to maximise the possibility of it happening, though, by sending a command to reorientate the lander.
This involved raising Philae by 4cm and rotating its main housing by 35%. This will ensure the largest solar panel catches the most light.

Esa told an online news briefing the drill has been active

Even if the probe falls silent over the weekend, researchers say they are thrilled with the amount of data already acquired.
It was suggested that as much as 80% of the primary science objectives had been achieved before the latest downlink. And this will now have been boosted still further.
Sky at Night presenter Chris Lintott watched the radio pass from the European Space Agency's mission control in Darmstadt, Germany.
"It was amazing, and everyone here is elated. If you'd asked them to write down what they'd wanted from this pass - it would have been exactly this," Prof Lintott reported.
In the latest tranche of data are the results from the drilling attempt made earlier in the day.
This had been an eagerly anticipated activity. Getting into the surface layers and bringing up a sample to analyse onboard was seen as central to the core mission of Philae.
Controllers say Cosac, the Philae laboratory that was due to receive the sample, downlinked its data, but that its contents had yet to be assessed.
Among other returns, Philae took another picture of the surface with its downward-looking Rolis camera.
It also exercised its Consert instrument. This is an experiment that sees Philae and Rosetta send radiowaves through the comet to try to discern its internal structure.
And it has the additional possibility of being used to help triangulate a precise position for Philae on the comet's surface.
This is still unknown. Although the robot hit the centre of its intended landing zone on Wednesday, it then bounced twice before coming to a stop.
Knowledge of that final resting location would enable engineers better to understand its predicament and the prospects for future contact if lighting conditions somehow change on 67P.
This could happen as the comet moves through space on its journey around the Sun. It will have seasons, just as the Earth does, and this could play to Philae's advantage by altering the angle, timing and intensity of the sunlight hitting the solar panels.
Communications with Philae were lost just before the expected end of the radio link to Rosetta
Philae was launched from Earth, piggybacked to the Rosetta satellite, in 2004.
The pair covered 6.4 billion km to reach Comet 67P out near the orbit of Jupiter.
Scientists hope the investigations at the rubber-duck-shaped ball of ice and dust can provide fresh insights on the origins of the Solar System.
Whatever happens to Philae, Rosetta will continue to make its remote observations of 67P

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