A washing-machine sized spacecraft which made history when it became the first device to land on a comet last year has woken up after a seven-month slumber, but what next for Philae, aka the Little Spacecraft That Could?
Philae touched down on Comet 67P last year but tumbled as it landed and bounced away from the first choice landing site and, crucially, away from the sunlight needed to power further experiments.
Philae managed to send initial information back to Rosetta but its batteries failed some 60 hours after it landed and the European Space Agency had to wait for the comet’s orbit to move Philae to a good location to harness the Sun’s energy.
In the first 85-second link up Philae transmitted 300 data packets which have been received by Lander Control Centre at the German Aerospace Centre, part of the ESA.
There are still more than 8,000 data packets in Philae’s mass memory which will give the DLR team information on what happened to the lander in the past few days on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
It’s understood that Philae woke up but couldn’t transmit information to Rosetta immediately.
If the link remains, ground-based scientists will start sending commands for it to carry out new measurements.
The comet will reach its point closest to the Sun on August 13 before swinging back out again. The lander should receive enough sunlight to operate until October.
Philae shut down on November 15. Since March 12 the communication unit on orbiter Rosetta was turned on to listen for the lander. Just last week, Rosetta got as close as four miles away from the surface of 67P in an effort to locate Philae.
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