It appears to be largely political issues that prevented this mission from using a Radioisotope thermoelectric generator , which would have eliminated this particular problem since solar panels would not be required. [1] This is how the Curiosity rover is powered.<p>If that is the case it's a massive shame - irrational fear of nuclear technology does a lot of damage.<p>1 - <a href="http://www.space4peace.org/ianus/npsm2.htm#2_3" rel="nofollow">http://www.space4peace.org/ianus/npsm2.htm#2_3</a>
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” - Mahatma Gandhi<p>Let's hope it will wake up and be reborn.<p>The chances for this seem not that bad, since the comet will heat up considerably as it approaches the sun, which will make it unnecessary to preheat the interior of Philae before starting to charge the batteries, while at the same time increasing the solar power reaching the panels (due to the sun being closer), so the lander might actually generate enough power to recharge the batteries and come alive again. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Anthropomorphizing machines somehow always manages to twang my emotional snares.
<a href="http://xkcd.com/695/" rel="nofollow">http://xkcd.com/695/</a><p>Good night, little lander. Hope you dream of electric sheep.
I'm really curious about the results. This is the first time something like this has happened, but with the results, actually knowing a lot of variables, not even from the lander itself other missions will have something to base their work upon.<p>The first programming languages (static, duck typed, ...), database systems, web frameworks, anonymization frameworks, ... all had a lot of things that were either far from perfect or are now considered stupidity. But when nobody did what you did, when you are a pioneer everyone following would be a fool not to look at your work.<p>Also a nice example: Operating Systems. In the early days they were considered a waste of energy, time, resources. Why would you want to emulate computers on other computers (no, not visualization, but running multiple programs) or why would you use that valuable memory/storage space to have multiple programs on a machine at once? Those used to be actual questions. But that's a bit far fetched.<p>The project was/is a real pioneering project and I have lots of respect for people investing all their lives (more than two decades in this case!) so passionately into landing on a comet. Not too long ago that was science fiction.<p>The first message on the internet (arpanet) was meant to be "login", but it crashed after the o. I think those people got further, even though without doubt it didn't run as hoped for.
Everytime I read about tech like this I cant help but wonder What kind of mainboard does this run? What CPU? What temp spec? what OS does it run? What is the main laguage? Would it use open source code?<p>Anyone has a clue or educated guess?<p><i>edit</i> thanks to all answers provided, exactly the info I was looking for! And very interesting as well.
I wish there were a lot more of missions like these. We should accept some failures as well. If the cost can be lowered, the increased risk can be offset by more tries. It's better for the science as well if the missions are more diverse and the lead times are shorter.<p>I hope humanity grew up, so that failures would not produce so much backlash. Seems everybody feels so entitled in this age.
I assume that Philae isn't meant to be powered directly by sunlight but has an intermediate battery? So wouldn't it make sense to simply wake him once this battery is full, do some experiment, send the data and go back to sleep until recharged again? Shouldn't that work even with low light conditions, just that the sleep phases would be much longer than planned?
The article sounds like they aren't sure Philae will ever wake up again.
Rosetta wouldn't have some mirrors, or even reflective surfaces, would it? It could position itself to reflect sunlight onto Philae.<p>I mean, I'm sure Rosetta has neither (in useful conditions), but there's a thought for next time :/
This was a very interesting mission, and sticking the landing alone means that it was a success.<p>Well done, let's hope some interesting data was collected as a bonus.
We shot that fridge from earth and guided it for 10 years and prior to launch we had it in planning for another 15 years or so to have a battery depletion on the second day?<p>Why didnt they just use nuclear energy?
As late as 12 November, the ESA's own FAQ [1] was stating that Philae's <i>minimum</i> mission target was one week of surface operation (powered entirely by primary batteries), with even more operational time powered by back-up batteries (themselves recharged by solar) - resulting in an expected surface operation period measured in months.<p>They airbrushed the FAQ on 12 November to remove mention of the minimum one week mission target, and inserted among other things '2.5 days'. [2] A diff of the two versions would probably be interesting.<p>Now with the lander mission prematurely ended an associated scientist is tweeting a very rosy summary [3]:<p>"What a perfect ending. All the science completed, data received. Primary mission successful. Well done everybody."<p>How can a week of carefully-planned scientific activities be 'completed' in only 2.5 days? It seems implausible.<p>How did the primary and secondary batteries not power the lander for the calculated one week+ of operation?<p>Why aren't they open about what clearly seems to be a major failure with the scientific mission?<p>It seems a case of intense bureaucratic / political pressure to change targets after they aren't met, and the fact scientists are participating in this is pretty disappointing.<p>[1] <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140805030451/http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Frequently_asked_questions" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20140805030451/http://www.esa.in...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Frequently_asked_questions" rel="nofollow">http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Freq...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://twitter.com/rocketeddy/status/533421309553016832" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/rocketeddy/status/533421309553016832</a>