Missed it by that much, Chief!
Posted on 11/13/2014 4:56:14 PM PST by NormsRevenge
After a historic but awkward comet landing, the robot probe Philae is now stable and sending pictures - but there are concerns about its battery life.
The lander bounced twice, initially about 1km back out into space, before settling in the shadow of a cliff, 1km from its intended target site.
It may now be problematic to get enough sunlight to charge its battery systems.
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The key issue vexing controllers right now is the lighting conditions.
Philae is receiving about 1.5 hours of illumination during every 12-hour rotation of the comet.
This will be insufficient to top up its battery system once the primary charge it had on leaving Rosetta runs out. That was some 60-plus hours.
It means Philae is unlikely to be operating in its present state beyond Saturday.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
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Saturday is it!!!
It was a heckuva ride (10 Years, 4 billion miles) tho!!
Just missed it by a kilometer,, or we could have feasted for years on this baby.. wherever its headed.. hopefully, not at Earth. ;-]
Please, No Diehard or Duracell jokes!!
Missed it by that much, Chief!
Bill Withers sang about this situation.
“Ain’t No Sunshine”
Well, that was going to be my lead.
Anyway
Too bad they couldn’t have programed a sleep mode to counter that problem
Bounced 1km and came back down?
For some reason I find that interesting.
Even a couple of relative small, partly elastic collisions can be a problem.
Any landing you can bounce away from.........
Per the article:
It seems that speculation is it may be on its side or such as it apparently doesn’t have three feet on the ground so to speak..
Discussion is ongoing of how to either get it righted (not likely, no provisions for such were provided for, or they can try to reposition the panels as best they can if they can.
Until they get it righted, a drill onboard the craft for tapping into the surface is unuseable.
Where’s AAA when ya need ‘em?
Song dedication to Philae.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbqQL0J_Vr0
Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love lyrics (excerpt)
It’s gettin’ near dawn
When lights close their tired eyes
I’ll soon be with you my love
To give you my dawn surprise
I’ll be with you darling soon
I’ll be with you when the stars start falling
I’ve been waiting so long to be where I’m going
In the sunshine of your love
/johnny
Anchor hooks did not get a good grip on the first go.. or so a space bird told me. It’s the simple things that trip ya up.
Shoulda used nuke power rather than solar panels.
They should have used an atomic battery like the one invented a hundred years ago by Henry Moseley. Photocell deposited on two glass plates, radioactive gas trapped between the plates. Moseley’s original batteries have been putting out a continuous electric current since 1912.
And this was hailed as evidence of European space superiority just yesterday. This is not much different from the deliberate crash of a probe unto another comet not long ago.
Just getting it there and being able to snap a few pictures is a remarkable achievement, but it is not a giant leap for humanity.
“Bounced 1km and came back down?”
The gravity on this thing might be so slight that you could possibly push off of it and achieve escape velocity, which would probably be bad.
Well then, ESA better fire those harpoons and not worry about further bouncing, cuz it don’t matter anymore.
Last chance to get into the sunshine for life extension.
Inflatable bags or hydraulic extension tubes, how heavy could this thing weigh now?
No
No
No.. no nukes in space yaknow.
might harm the atmosphere or radiate the populace it falls on if bad things happen at launch..
I hear ya tho.
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