The pioneering lander Philae completed its primary mission of exploring the comet’s surface and returned plenty of data before depleted batteries forced it to go silent, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Saturday.
“All of our instruments could be operated and now it’s time to see what we got,” ESA’s blog quoted lander manager Stephan Ulamec as saying.
Since landing on Wednesday on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko some 500 million kilometres away, the lander has performed a series of scientific tests and sent reams of data, including photos, back to Earth.
In addition, the lander was lifted on Friday by about 1.5 inches and rotated about 35 degrees in an effort to pull it out of a shadow so that solar panels could recharge the depleted batteries, ESA’s blog said.
ESA spokesman Bernard von Weyhe on Saturday confirmed the lander’s difficult rotation operation. It’s still unclear whether it succeeded in putting the solar panels out of the shade.
Even if the lander was rotated successfully and is able to recharge its batteries with sunlight, it may take weeks or months until it will send out new signals. Regular checks for signals will continue.
ESA’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, received the last signals from Philae on Saturday morning at 0036 GMT. Before the signal died, the lander returned all of its housekeeping data as well as scientific data of its experiments on the surface, which means it completed the measures as planned, the ESA blog said.
