NASA has made plenty of mistakes, so why not Europe? Heck, all the Gerry Anderson live action sci-fi shows are just one big debacle after another. We should expect it. I imagine the time lag with the spotty data and photo info they're getting, and however they process it, is not giving them a clear picture of the situation.
They gambled on using a dead reckoning method to deliver Philae to the surface. The concensus is there was nothing wrong with the technique because the lander is believed to have hit the spot (more or less) they were aiming for. The problem was that several critical components failed to work at the moment of truth. Had they worked, the story would be different. Unfortunately, the moment the probe struck the surface it became a bullet, ricocheting all over the show and embedding itself unceremoniously in a wall someplace.
Unless they get to sample the dirty snowball in some way, all that will have been achieved is to fly an expensive model by remote control only to lose it in a back yard.
I would think the orbiter/lander had self-monitoring systems to make sure the hardware continued to function during the 10 year flight, along with redundancies. It's just too bad they didnt send TWO landers.
If it was easy, this wouldn't be the 1st time such a mission was tried. I will never take these kind of deep space probes for granted ... it's for real 'rocket science'.
If it was easy, this wouldn't be the 1st time such a mission was tried. I will never take these kind of deep space probes for granted ... it's for real 'rocket science'.
Agreed, nothing for them to hang their heads down on. This was a pioneering mission. I think some are a bit spoiled with NASA's recent successes on Mars. Well most missions to Mars have failed. Exploring space is extremely difficult and risky. It's incredible what these scientists can do, but make no mistake about it, these are "test" missions and there's nothing routine about them. Live and learn.
It seems there was some life left in the old gal. The lander appears to have gone into shutdown due to low primary battery power - and it may remain that way for good. Let's hope the last transmission burst has lots of interesting ones and zeros that open up the lid on secrets that have been entombed since the big one.
Either there will be amino acids in the scoop sample or there won't. Either way, it will be a result. Personally, I don't think they will be found there. Sure, that's where our water comes from - the comets - probably lots of them. But to limit the formation of a-acids to the outer extremeties of the solar system goes against some of the grain. That's were assemblage of the elements that go to make water does seem more likely. Those elements are simpler in composition. The a-acids are a whole lot more complex. For one thing, they contain carbon, which is more likely to be sourced from the inner solar system. I think the a-acids need a strong gravitational field for assembly where there are pressures and processes of the required order - basically solid surfaces where fluids and solids can mix freely to create the chemistry. Who knows?
Personally, I have no clue about any of the science stuff, but I'm quite fascinated. There was zero coverage of this event in mainstream Norwegian media before the actual landing a few days ago. So it caught me completely by surprise.
Know my stuff? I don't know much about anything, Thor. I'm just a lay person trying to make sense of what's going on around me.
One of the more interesting angles to come out of this event is that not everyone is completely impressed in the traditionally expected way. For instance, lots of people just see the Rosetta mission as part of the bureaucracy maintaining the status quo of those who are disproportionately funded as opposed to those who receive no funding at all. There are a few public stances that have emerged, if you look at the online newspaper columns and the commentary so aroused by the public.
The public space where few dare to tread is fraught with peril. Who would have thought one of the scientists taking the time and effort to explain things to viewers would end up having to apologise for the shirt they were wearing?
It seems that, on the whole, they got rather a lot of science done. We now know what the effects of dropping a small bomb on a comet are likely to be!
Seriously. I'm so used to seeing physics textbook problems that gloss over certain details, where, for example, frictional effects are assumed to be negligible that when it comes to a stunt like pushing an object the size of Philae against the beast what better example of fusing all the details into a slightly more complex whole can there be than that incident, which will surely set a new standard in the context of taking aim and then firing! It would be great if the flight dynamics team could formulate the problem in such a way that could serve schools and colleges. The historical aspect of the mission alone should be more than enough to light the fire of inquisitiveness.
As for the on-board experiments I have not heard a thing. I'm sure that if they bagged the really important findings everyone is looking out for they'll announce the results in a major press conference, or something.
Rosetta's narrow field of view camera has found that it caught an image after Philae had hit the surface and then deflected upwards. That seems to be the hot nugget of info for the moment. You can see the comet's surface is disturbed with a dust cloud from the impact, with Philae travelling away on it's way up. There's a shadow cast by the lander.
That's damn cool! Thxs. Hope the probe was able to do it's experiments and beamed them to the orbiter. Unlike the Mars Rovers this guy was designed to gather information rather quickly- if all went well. As you said if that happened I'm sure we will hear about it.
BTW its amazing that something so tiny on a huge 2.5 rock has enough mass to actually ever so minusculely (sp?) change the comets trajectory.
Yeah, Sol. The fact that Rosetta was injected into an actual orbit around the comet is really something, especially with a gravitational field not in the form of an idealised sphere due to the comet's mass distribution being so irregular. Going into orbit around the earth or the moon has been done lots of times. Even going to another planet and then going into orbit has been done. I suppose getting to orbit a comet is not a particularly 'big' deal for those who worked out the orbital elements. That reminds me, just how did they work it out? The answer may not be as difficult to arrive at as one supposes. As far as I can recall, the problems of orbits don't really go much deeper than 2nd derivatives. But I still take my hat off to them for working out the details so perfectly. They intercepted while still some way from the Sun and got the bulk of the interesting bits out before Xmas!
And we still haven't got to see that thing light up like a candle from close range.
