The Philae Europe’s comet lander woke up yesterday afternoon and contacted Earth, for the first time after 7 months.
Images credit ESA
Yesterday the Philae lander ‘spoke’ with European Space Agency (ESA) via Rosetta for 85 seconds.
Philae has yet to send over 8,000 data packets that will explain what happened over the past few months. ESA will try to retrieve them the next time contact is made.
In November the Philae lander became the first object to land on the surface of a comet.
Dr. Stephan Ulamec DLR Philae Project Manager, said:
“Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 Watts available. The lander is ready for operations.”
When analysing the status data it became clear that Philae also must have been awake earlier: “We have also received historical data – so far, however, the lander had not been able to contact us earlier.”
source esa.int
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