Rosetta Comet Landing: LIVE-Stream, Countdown & Mission Updates

Exciting times ahead, folks: Rosetta's "Philae Lander" is ready to be deployed to the Agilkia landing site on Comet 67p/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. As of now, the countdown reads 30 minutes and counting until separation of the lander. I wish the team good luck for this historic event!



Make sure to tune into the LIVE video stream on the ESA website, if you get the chance to. Here's what's going to happen during descent and after touchdown:



Location of the Landing-Site (Agilkia):


Also check the links below for more information about what's going to happen in the next hours & days, realtime updates will be available on Philae's Twitter Page.

@mods: I searched for related threads but couldn't find anything using the search function. In case, a similar thread already exists, please feel free to move or delete.

Most of you know that I'm usually interested in the anomaly-side of things (and who knows what they'll find on that 'comet'). On the other hand, I just couldn't resist drafting a brief thread about this unique & fascinating landing attempt and look forward to the exciting science data this mission is going to provide ... so good luck, ESA, and we're all gonna keep our fingers crossed!



Sources & Links:
-------------------------------------------------------
01. LIVE Stream on rosetta.esa.int
02. Mission Page and Countdown
03. Philae Lander Specs
04. NAVCAM image gallery (Comet 67P/C-G)
05. Rosetta Blog
06. Philae Lander on Twitter
07. Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
08. Nice Info-Graphics on WSJ
09. Descent Timeline, Business Insider

a reply to: jeep3r

Excellent thread! You beat me too it, I didn't have enough posts to make a new one. Do you mind if I add updates into yours?

Thanks for all the links and information jeep3r!

I'll definitely be tuning in as space never ceases to amaze me.

15 Minutes to go.

This is much better than doom porn, you have to wait months or years for that stuff.

This is so much cooler.

P

a reply to: CosmicAnomaly

Hey, CosmicAnomaly, of course I'm looking forward to everybody's contributions in this thread. I'm hoping this thread will evolve into a kind of "real-time-coverage-post", in collaboration with the folks on this forum and on ATS in general.

Admittedly, I'm rather the 'anomaly-guy', not so much the comet-expert (although I'm quite interested in this particular one)! With that said, I'm obviously dependent on guys who have been dealing with Comet 67p and Rosetta for much longer than myself ... I very much look forward to their comments and opinions (and to yours, too, of course)!

Excellent. This mission is just as cool as it gets.
I think real new science will leap out of this and hope that that little probe can get a foothold on this baby.

Is this live? Like...NOW?

a reply to: jeep3r

Thanks!
Fingers crossed that it can secure itself with the cold gas thruster being operable. It's going to be a nerve-wracking day, hopefully we'll be partying tomorrow and not drowning our sorrows!

I had NO clue this was going on. I just stumbled on this thread in the last 10 minutes.

lol

a reply to: BatheInTheFountain

Yep, right now ... and separation has been confirmed!



From Philae's twitter account:


According to ESA's blog, Philae is now waiting for touchdown (approx. at 17:00 CET). Let's hope the harpoons will do their job as planned!

Wow. So cool. Watching a lander land on a huge ROCK way out in space! So glad I caught this.

With the recent report of "radio waves" coming from Rosetta, and now the last minute "landing issues" this whole thing is gonna end up a conspiracy thread when it crashes.

Guaranteed.

Record your info now.

The signal has come through and telemetry has confirmed - Philae has separated!

originally posted by: Thorneblood
With the recent report of "radio waves" coming from Rosetta

Do you mean the magnetic field variations from the comet?

a reply to: CosmicAnomaly

Yes, hence the quotation marks.......

I will admit, I hate how nicely it links back to that movie though.
Has anyone tried the water filtration trick on this "song"?

a reply to: Thorneblood

Do you mean 'Ambition'? Can you elaborate on what you mean because I'm not quite sure. I'm ignorant to what you are referring to regarding the 'water filtration trick' as well...

This thing will be swallowed by an Exogorth!

a reply to: CosmicAnomaly

While I cannot remember the name atm, there was a War of the Worlds style tv movie a few years ago in which a trio of meteors strike earth and all are emitting a similar "song." Eventually they realize the song was an attempt at communication, the voyager recordings I think, and that all the aliens communications sound weird and grabled because they are in a liquid environment. They use a technique to filter out the watery sound and realize too late the aliens were broadcasting messages of peace right until we attack them.

Think of the math and realtime data processing.
Comet in orbit around Sun.
Rosetta in orbit around Comet.
Lander moving towards comet.
and you can only see and measure what happened 20 minutes ago.
Incredible.

Oh, and forgot; If you send it a command, it takes 20 to get there as well
Now you have to wait 40 minutes to see if the command worked!

a reply to: WakeUpBeer

God I hope!