After a rough landing 8 months ago and going dark after 60 hours of operation due to lack of sun, now that its closer to the sun, Philae has woken up again and just today transmitted to Earth that its fine.
Hello Earth! Can you hear me? #WakeUpPhilae
— Philae Lander ( @Philae2014 ) June 14, 2015
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/06/14/rosettas-lander-philae-wakes-up-from-hibernation/
that's awesome, i forgot about this a while ago, but the concept of humans landing a unmanned probe on an asteroid is amazing
It's amazing. It was only about 40 years ago that we discovered the comet and now we have a probe on it as its about to orbit close around the sun.
Everyone was unsure if it would wake up or not but hoped that as it got closer to the sun it would have the opertunity to recharge its batteries, which it did. It's operating at -35C just now on the surface.
Good stuff. I was very disappointed when it went offline. Good that it is back. Hopefully we can get some.good data from it biw. And hopefully it is okay and not damaged.
philae is much smaller, than hayabusa, which was the first to successfully retrieve a sample back to earth, hayabusa's payload was 510kg, philaes was only 98 or so. considering that both may have been built for different purposes. i think they should have built philae with the intention to retrieve a sample and do more definitive experimentswith a slightly larger payload. after all scientist believe that life originated from asteroids that crashed into earth. something definitive would have been nice.
also not sure what propelled philae in space. but the hayabusa used ion thrusters. which imo is incredible!
i wish i'm still alive by the time they discover how to make space travel much more feasible, especially the part where you escape the earths atmosphere
Ion thrusters are definetly cool technology. The difference between the two is that one was a asteroid mission and the other a comet.
Philae has no engine, it has a small thruster that was to aid its decent into the comet and harpoons to attach its self to the ground.
well heres hoping musk and spacex bring us the future of space travel in my lifetime. i would love to experience space at least once.
read an article written by one of the american iss astronauts where he said. going to space changed him. his views of what it meant to be human and what lies beyond earth.
trivial is the word he used to describe our thought process and problem solving. we need more people like musk and the iss astronaut to see what humanity can achieve. :)
It would be great to go into space. So many thing artificially hold technology back but I don't think it's beyond ability for there to be much more common space flight in our life time.
If that never happens for me I will endeavour to so the next best thing, VR.
true that, google is amazing in that they provided a platform where anyone could see the earth from high up in orbit. it looks so amazing. with the advances in space x and ion engines and mars mission, i think the idea where spacex takes you to the iss and then transfers you to a ion driven craft to mars perhaps would be amazing.
also with the way we currently bastardise the planet and its resources, definitely one of the government bodies is looking at feasibility for space advancements, for resource gathering and sustainability of this planet
thought I'd share this with anyone else who is interested in space! it has all the streams time and information for nasa, where you can tune in and watch. on that list is a docking from a space x shuttle with the iss, although berthing is more accurate ;) ! june 26 and 29.