Philae Wakes Up! Options

[Sherbert]

Nice graphic Herobrine.

That suggests to me that either Perihelion Cliff, or "Spider Hill", is blocking almost half the cone, but the crater rim is less of a problem, at lower latitudes in particular, illustrating the comments from ESA. Oh for a detailed topographical model of the Abydos environs. This area being mainly in shadow during the close orbit phase, I guess there are just not enough images of adequate resolution and illumination from multiple angles, to construct one.

[machi]

I added a communication cone to Philae on my Rosetta Now! simulation page:

http://mattias.malmer.nu/rosetta-now/

Good work!

[chuck0]

@Herobrine thanks for putting those times into proper context!

Btw, did anyone already post Philaes nominal communication range? According to this

http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~szalai/Publicatio...06-fulltext.pdf

it is rated with up to 150km so they are really keeping the orbiter at the outer limit of this. I think under all those circumstances getting more science out of Philae will be a major achievement... i really love this mission for all the changing circumstances that require tons of improvisation. Keeps things interesting

[scalbers]

I'm on the road right now just briefly checking in. Nice to see the cone from Mattias and I agree the lower part would be blocked. Maybe a bit more than half of the cone could be intersecting Perihelion Cliff in the NE and off to the N. Will be interesting to see if Rosetta can be positioned toward the favorable part of the cone, maybe a moderately high angular altitude in the NNW sky.

[alphasam]

Another update from Lander Control;

http://twitter.com/DLR_en/status/616963983002730496/video/1

No new contacts, they are going to send a command on Sunday to Philae to turn on its Consert antenna. This will have different visibility constraints and so may allow contact.

Sounds all a bit desperate unfortunately, something is clearly not quite right.

[climber]

I don't feel it this way. Why will you sent a desperate command on a sunday? This looks like an antena alignment opportunity to me. Time will tell, as ever.

[chuck0]

Well in one of the DLR blog posts there has been talk about one of the two transmitters on Philae not working properly... maybe the second one failed now as well?

[surbiton]

Doesn't look good. Maybe it is "too hot" now.

How much of "new" data came out of Philae ?

[Herobrine]

Quick update video from DLR today: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/618054...pUDntmQmNr.webm

Associated tweet: https://twitter.com/DLR_en/status/618054586499244037/

Summary: Rosetta hasn't received anything from CONSERT after their first attempt. They will try again Thursday under different geometrical conditions. Another status update is expected Friday.

[chuck0]

Rosetta navigation data now available up to July 24th. They are still in their scanning path on the terminator. At closest approach they will be at 150km now. It is interesting to see how quickly the terminator plane is now changing so close to perihelion.

[Daba]

From: http://bit.ly/1JXbj2l

"Another problem may be that the lander simply can’t hear. After analyzing the data received from last month’s sporadic contacts, engineers have determined that at least one of the lander’s two receivers is broken. If the second receiver is similarly compromised, then the mission is effectively over."

[Paolo]

a new contact (at last!) yesterday
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/10/ne...d-successfully/

[climber]

Reminds me when Spirit was kind of living is own Life when she used to have her flash issue after landing.
Very encouraging News BTW.

[scalbers]

Yes - remarkable that the command worked to turn on CONSERT, so Philae can receive as well. As the report mentions, it's unclear why this communication worked and some others didn't. I wonder how the successes and misses map out with Rosetta's latitude, and "hour angle" of both Rosetta and the Sun? Nice that they had a good signal over 12 minutes too.

[surbiton]

Yes - remarkable that the command worked to turn on CONSERT, so Philae can receive as well. As the report mentions, it's unclear why this communication worked and some others didn't. I wonder how the successes and misses map out with Rosetta's latitude, and "hour angle" of both Rosetta and the Sun? Nice that they had a good signal over 12 minutes too.

A 12 minute continuous communication should be able to pinpoint Philae's exact location. Right ? Next we need new pictures.