PARIS: Europe’s robot lab Philae, zipping towards the Sun on a comet, has called home for the eighth time since waking up from hibernation last month, French space agency CNES said Friday.
After a 15-day silence, Philae had a 20-minute conversation with ground control via its mother ship Rosetta, in orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it said in a statement.
This was “very encouraging news for the remainder of the Philae mission,” the agency said.
There had been no news from the washing machine-sized robot lab since June 24, a disquieting break for mission controllers.
Philae first woke up on June 13 after seven months in hibernation on the comet’s surface.
The tiny lander touched down on November 12 last year after a 10-year journey piggybacking on Rosetta.
The landing was bumpy—the tiny lab bounced several times on the craggy surface before ending up in deep shade, deprived of sunlight to replenish its battery.
Philae had enough onboard power to send home data from about 60 hours of tests conducted with eight of its 10 instruments, before going into standby mode on November 15.
But the lander’s power pack is being recharged as 67P streaks toward the Sun at about 31 kilometres (19 miles) per second.
Thursday’s eighth contact was the longest yet, with an uninterrupted stretch of 12 minutes, said the CNES, which allowed the downloading of critical data obtained from Philae’s prodding and probing of its alien world.
Tesla driverless system to use updated radar technology
WASHINGTON: Electric carmaker Tesla announced Sunday it was upgrading its Autopilot software to use more advanced radar technology. In a...
