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

Some of these guys sound very disappointed about the lander bouncing away from the initial target landing location.

Hopefully the eventual and actual landing location will still yield a lot of great data, and also will be a place that the lander would be able to do science for a while (and be able to charge its batteries).

I have a question...If it is the case (as they think) that maybe one of the legs of the lander is pointing generally up, does that mean that they won't be able to drill?

Did anyone else lose the stream, or is the problem on my end?

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Lost it too..right when they wanted to tell how the lander got to, where it is suspected to be now

You can click to any point in the stream, so just go back to where it dropped off to catch up :-)

a reply to: 1muzzle

Thanks. I thought the problem might be them, considering that I'm getting something, just not the briefing (the livestream seems to be working, but all I see is the title card).

Update:
It's back.

At least it when it bounced, it managed to stay within the area of the Comet and landed elsewhere instead of floating out to no-mans land!!

I hope they can fire the harpoons and maybe move it to a safer/better spot!

But yeah, this is like Billions to 1 shot that they landed it on the Comet in the first place, so just that is amazing.

So they may be able to do something to re-orient it? If they can, that would be good news if they could get the lander and its solar panels into a better orientation to be able to keep power going. I'm not holding my breath, though.

a reply to: CosmicAnomaly

Thank you for the info..but one can only go back up to 9 minutes it seems. I lost the stream about 30 minutes ago and wasnt able to go back on it until when soylent updated.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

So they may be able to do something to re-orient it? If they can, that would be good news if they could get the lander and its solar panels into a better orientation to be able to keep power going. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Seems to me I read that they cannot control it from here. It is autonomous.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Priority will be to get the scheduled experiments going (powered by the primary battery). The extra power from solar panels is nice to have, but only really needed for the long-term science phase, from my understanding.

originally posted by: Spruce

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

So they may be able to do something to re-orient it? If they can, that would be good news if they could get the lander and its solar panels into a better orientation to be able to keep power going. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Seems to me I read that they cannot control it from here. It is autonomous.

The landing procedure was autonomous, but I think they can still command it to do things. They are looking to move certain parts of it in order to give it enough momentum to re-orient itself. If they move things precisely enough, they may be able to make it hop again to sit upright.

It is amazing to me how so many of our Scifi movies through the years got pretty close when imagining what it would be like. Wonder if there is any gold, platinum and Helium 3 in them there hills.

They should have put little drills in its feet that could drill down to anchor it. ESA very good at getting to deep space targets but not so good at landing yet. (Beagle 2 and now this). At least it is feet down and operational! Congrats.

a reply to: Xeven

There are screws in the feet that were supposed to drill down, so they basically did. Things just didn't go completely as planned.

spaceflightnow.com...

a reply to: Xeven

Looking good, at least for CIVA, here's what they've got so far:

40 metres above 'Chury':
Source

First Panoramic Image acquired by CIVA
(I don't think it's available in fullsize yet):
Source

originally posted by: Xeven
They should have put little drills in its feet that could drill down to anchor it. ESA very good at getting to deep space targets but not so good at landing yet. (Beagle 2 and now this). At least it is feet down and operational! Congrats.

It probably bounced before it had a chance to screw itself down.

I bet it bounced pretty quickly, not really touching down the first time for any more than an instant, considering that the first bounce put it back out into space for almost 2 hours (at a height of 1 km) before coming back down and bouncing again (although it was "airborn" for only a few minutes after the 2nd bounce).

It rotated itself while in space after the first bounce, so that's why it may have come down on its side (at least partially on its side) when it finally came to rest, which is bad for battery recharging, since at least one of the solar panels will be getting no sunlight.

From what I am reading it is now confirmed that the lander is stuck in a cliff on the rim of a crater and two legs are down but the third is pointing into space.

Worst case their have to put it in hibernation until the comet is closer to the Sun and can receive enough sunlight for charging the Batteries.

originally posted by: flyandi
From what I am reading it is now confirmed that the lander is stuck in a cliff on the rim of a crater and two legs are down but the third is pointing into space.

Worst case their have to put it in hibernation until the comet is closer to the Sun and can receive enough sunlight for charging the Batteries.

Another worst-case scenario would be to attempt to use one of the movable instruments to "launch/nudge" the lander a bit. Doing this may put it back up above the surface for a short time before it comes to rest again. If they figure out a way to do this relatively precisely, they may manage to get the lander in a more favorable position.

This is being considered, but only as one of the last resorts. However, hoping that it wakes up after a long hibernation may be just as risky as trying to use one of its instruments to flip it back up off the surface, hoping for a better landing orientation.

a reply to: jeep3r

why is there blurred areas on that photograph? one of them looks like an actual square of blurriness...
doctoring or is it lens issues I think is the common meme

That one spot looks like a face or pyramid and some buildings on it lol.