Lander Philae on Comet 67P has Gone Dark

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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The ESA has announced that the Philae lander on comet 67P has run out of juice and put itself to sleep until it can gather enough solar energy to resume operation. Since the lander is nestled against a cliff in the shadows, it's unknown when it will reactivate. ESA calls the misison a "scientific successs."

Professor Mark McCaughrean, senior scientific adviser to the ESA, told BBC Radio 5 live they were "hugely happy". He said: "All of the science instruments on board have done all the work they were supposed to do so we have huge amounts of data back on the ground now, which is really exciting. Philae could come back later as we move closer to the sun, and we get more light onto the solar panels up against the cliff we're at here in the shadows."
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I am still in awe that we could land something on a damn comet. Badass.
 
Ever piece of news I have read about this has given me the shivers - godspeed little lander - godspeed.

(how ****ing awesome is it that we can land something a comet like this - WITHOUT Aerosmith and Satan Bay ruining everything?)
 
Obviously they discovered something and Area 51 stepped in with the excuse that the batteries died
 
Wonder how much cheaper it would be, and how many more scientific instruments they could have on it if they just used a nuclear fuel source instead.
 
it probably got sick and tired of the femnazis freaking on dude for his shirt, and decided to kill itself.
 
mope54 said:
wouldn't it be much heavier though?
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Not really, the PU-238 Radioisotope generator on the curiosity rover is like 45 kg. A scaled down version for an application like this would scale favorably as far as the unit's mass goes.
 
i thought it was a success just rendevouzing with the comet. that alone is enough to make me happy and content.
 
Feminist bully a man to tears because of his shirt. Then says he was asking for it, because of what he was wearing. Oh, the irony.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wonder how much cheaper it would be, and how many more scientific instruments they could have on it if they just used a nuclear fuel source instead.
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How much P238 would it take, though? The stuff is valued at several million $ per kg because of its rarity...does the ESA have enough for a mission like this? And if they don't, would Russia be willing to sell them any?(And if they were willing, how much would they charge?)

I don't know how it would impact the weight of the mission either, but if it was lighter or maybe only marginally heavier then an RTG would probably be the best option if you had lots of P238 lying around waiting to be used for something. As it stands, I think it's still exceptionally rare and "expensive" isn't it?
 
BladeVenom said:
Feminist bully a man to tears because of his shirt. Then says he was asking for it, because of what he was wearing. Oh, the irony.
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it's the quest for who is the most oppressed person mixed with attention whoring on twitter and such. they even infight within the femnazi movement calling out others that they are too privileged.
 
Spewn said:
How much P238 would it take, though? The stuff is valued at several million $ per kg because of its rarity...does the ESA have enough for a mission like this? And if they don't, would Russia be willing to sell them any?(And if they were willing, how much would they charge?)

I don't know how it would impact the weight of the mission either, but if it was lighter or maybe only marginally heavier then an RTG would probably be the best option if you had lots of P238 lying around waiting to be used for something. As it stands, I think it's still exceptionally rare and "expensive" isn't it?
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True the cost of Plutonium ain't cheap, I think the Cassini mission had something like 30 kilograms of it. So it definitely is not going to be a cheaper alternative. And it very well might be less weight with the solar panels since they don't exactly have terribly many solar panels. However what it comes down to is actual usefulness of the mission. If the thing never turns on because it barely gets sunlight, then plutonium might end up being a cheaper alternative because it actually would have power to do stuff other than land.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wonder how much cheaper it would be, and how many more scientific instruments they could have on it if they just used a nuclear fuel source instead.
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Even if an RTG had been an option I don't think they would have considered it. The probe spent 10 years doing nothing while attached to Rosetta and the landing was very risky.

Spewn said:
How much P238 would it take, though? The stuff is valued at several million $ per kg because of its rarity...does the ESA have enough for a mission like this? And if they don't, would Russia be willing to sell them any?(And if they were willing, how much would they charge?)

I don't know how it would impact the weight of the mission either, but if it was lighter or maybe only marginally heavier then an RTG would probably be the best option if you had lots of P238 lying around waiting to be used for something. As it stands, I think it's still exceptionally rare and "expensive" isn't it?
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I don't think the Russians have any available for sale any more. They stopped selling to the US years ago. P238 production has been shut down since the end of the cold war, the global supply is nearly gone.
 
I suppose this little guy can come back to life if enough light reaches it. Would be interesting to see what else they can learn.
 
It's ok guys I run into this kind of stuff all the time in Kerbal Space Program. All I have to do is wait for the solar panels to.....oh shit I forgot to add solar panels.
 
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