Philae2014 Comet Landing: A scientific Feet That Opens A Whole New Doorway for Space Research

by benson Agoha | Space Science

Monica Grady, a Professor with the Open University and one of the scientists who worked on 'Philae2014' probe mission - a 10 year mission to attempt to land a probe on a comet, could not hide her joy when mission control received confirmation that Philae had attached successfully to the comet.

Prof Monica Grady of the Open University spreads her hands after a
 successful landing. (Credit: BBC).

After spending enormous time working on their part of the project - a shoe-box-sized tool called Ptolemy, which will be used for gas analysis, it was her time to exclaim "It's landed - I've waited years for this".

Grady's photo is already one of the competing images of the landing, besides the selfie the probe took to prove it has attached.

Though described as soft, the landing slightly deviated from what scientist hoped for after it's harpoons failed, making it land with a bounce on the 2.5mile wide rock believed to be a relic from the solar system's formation.

Yesterday's achievement is remarkable in many respects, considering the number of years it took, as well as the distance it had to travel to realise. The Philae landed after travelling with Rosetta for a journey, began a decade ago, and covering 6.4 billion-kilometres.

On its journey since launch, Rosetta,the mothership (with solar panels on above photo, have had to take a long sleep (or hybernation) and was only awakened when Scientist felt it was close enough to start chasing the fast moving comet, that travels at some 34,000mph around the sun.

 

In January Mission Controllers also rejoiced after they successfully woke Rosetta up from a long hybernation, which began on 8 June, 2011.

 

On Monday, Jaunary 20, 2014, scientists decided napping times for the spacecraft had lapsed and it was time to wake her up. At that time, it had hibernated for 31 months from June 2011, and was at a distance of 673million kilometers from the Sun.

 

At the pre-determined period, at 10.00am on Monday 20th January, 2014, she was called to Wake Up! She did and then gradually turned and her Solar panel arrays faced directly towards the Sun. She then began a slower rotation.

 

Thereafter, it began to track and pursue her target - the Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Yesterday, Department for Business sent a Congratulatory message to the Crew of Mission Control at ESA’s Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, saying 

"to the UK scientists who made the #cometlanding possible - You’ve opened a new chapter in space exploration!"

After the landing yesterday, `Philae' which communicates with earth like a human said " I’m on the surface but my harpoons did not fire. My team now trying to determine why. #CometLanding", to which Mission Control said "Hang on in there Philae!"

Well, as at this morning, it is still hanging in there. Congratulations to all those who helped to make this possible and who have opened a wide doorway for further space research.