Philae lander sends first images of comet to ESA

After the historic landing on comet 67P/CG, which incidentally did not go entirely smoothly, lander Philae has sent the first images of the comet landscape to ESA. Due to Philae’s failure to fire his harpoons, the surface may not be able to be drilled.

According to data received by ESA from a research instrument in the Philae lander, it appears that the landing on comet 67P/CG was not successful: the first soft landing is said to have taken place at 16:33 on Wednesday afternoon, after which the lander presumably bounced and then landed again twice. At 6:33 PM, the Philae finally landed on the comet, one kilometer from its original landing site. It would be a rocky area with only 90 minutes of sunlight every 12 hours. This could cause problems for the probe’s batteries to charge and thus the mission length. Philae’s antennas are well aimed at the Rosetta.

The lander’s harpoons appear to be off shortly after landing activated. These were intended to anchor the ‘comet chaser’ to the comet surface. Space expert Govert Schilling say that this may mean that the lander cannot drill at 67P/CG.

Besides the possible anchoring issues, not all electronics in Philae seem to function properly. According to the French organization CNES, the solar cells are damaged and eight out of ten instruments transmit data, writes the editor of Spacenews. Well, the probe has the first photos transmitted from the comet’s surface. This requires patience: the signals, which travel through space at the speed of light, cover the distance of almost half a billion kilometers in about 28 minutes. In addition, the throughput is very low: it is 28 kbit/s.