Seen above: an artist’s rendering of Philae
After becoming the first probe to heroically land on a comet this past November, the Philae lander has died. The European Space Agency (ESA) vessel had unfortunately fallen into shadowed crevice on the surface of the comet, where it was unable to receive enough sunlight to recharge its battery. Contact was lost at 00:36 GMT when power levels plummeted below critical.
Philae — the probe launched from the Rosetta orbiter — became trapped on the comet after a mechanical failure prevented the thruster and the harpoon, designed to anchor it place, from activating, causing the craft to bounce back into space. After bouncing a second time, Philae finally succeeded in landing, but landed in a crevice one kilometer away from its original destination with most of the solar panels buried. The few panels exposed were only able to catch 1.5 hours of sunlight per day, far less than is needed to keep the spacecraft fully operational.
A window period of 60 hours permitted scientists to carry out the majority of planned first sequence experiments and transfer the resulting data back to Earth. During this time, engineers rushed to improvise a solution to salvage what was left of the mission, but decided against redeploying the harpoons for fear of displacing Philae off the comet, or damaging it. Eventually, the ESA ground team brainstormed the idea of rotating the probe’s main body 35 degrees to expose a larger portion of the solar panel, but the maneuver was too late to save the probe.
“Prior to falling silent, the lander was able to transmit all science data gathered during the First Science Sequence,” says DLR's Stephan Ulamec, Lander manager. “This machine performed magnificently under tough conditions, and we can be fully proud of the incredible scientific success Philae has delivered.”
Philae is currently sitting in idle mode, but scientists believe it is extremely unlikely that enough sunlight will fall on the probe.
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