Comet lander Philae wakes up after long period without power

Philae, the spacecraft that spectacularly landed on a comet last year, has woken up again. After a long period with empty batteries, the sun seems to be falling on the solar panels again, so that the research can possibly be resumed.

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that Philae has made contact again, which is a major boost for the research program. On Saturday evening, the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt received about 300 data packets from the comet lander; the first sign of life in months. There are about 8,000 data packets left in memory and the ESA hopes they will be sent at the next contact. Then it should also become clearer what has happened in recent days.

The data shows that the conditions on the comet are good. Philae has a temperature of -35 degrees Celsius and has enough power available to perform tasks. What exactly will be done has not yet been announced. It is Philae’s first contact since it turned itself off on November 15 due to a lack of power. The ESA had expected Philae to wake up earlier. Incidentally, the data received indicated that the lander had already become active again, but had not yet had the opportunity to contact Earth.

Philae landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12. It is the first time that a spacecraft has successfully landed on a comet: such an operation is complicated because small objects such as comets have hardly any gravity. The landing of Philae therefore did not go completely according to plan. Bouncing on landing would have sent the vehicle several hundred meters from its intended position, negatively impacting the amount of sunlight hitting the panels.