

Philae has landed - talltofu
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30026398
Live coverage here http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.yahoo.com&#x2F;video&#x2F;abc-news-plus-special-report-220000361.html<p>Thanks @brianpgordon - Check out this gif of the orbital maneuvers required for Rosetta to reach its destination: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;TUkKuhf.gif<p>Live twitter feed of ESA https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;esaoperations<p>It looks like @Philae2014 made a fairly gentle touch down on #67P based on amount of landing gear damping #CometLanding
======
kartikkumar
Absolutely stunning feat of engineering. My bosses are on the drill team for
Philae and were amongst the nervy faces being beamed all over the world. Great
example of what European nations can do when politics don't get in the way.
ExoMars [1] and Bepi-Colombo [2] are perfect examples of the inverse.

Look forward to the first pictures from the surface. I'm at the Division on
Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting [3] in Tucson at the moment, and there are
already incredible results being presented based on data acquired by Rosetta.
Stay tuned for a whole lot more!

[1] [http://exploration.esa.int/mars/46048-programme-
overview](http://exploration.esa.int/mars/46048-programme-overview)

[2]
[http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/BepiColombo_...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/BepiColombo_overview2)

[3] [http://aas.org/meetings/dps46](http://aas.org/meetings/dps46)

~~~
throwit99
At the risk of turning political, it's a great example of how our taxes are
wasted. Playing with space toys shouldn't be funded with taxpayer money.

I'm sure I'll get downvoted to hell for this, but why should my money be
funding this? Sorry, but it has no benefit whatsoever.

edit: Instead of downvoting a dissenting voice, why not argue your case - why
should taxpayers fund space toys?

edit2: Well, looks like I'm banned from commenting. Good job dealing with
those that don't agree with you...

~~~
return0
I 'd dare you to specify what's more important where your money should be
spent.

~~~
throwit99
Health, welfare, lowering taxes, employment.... y'know, things that enrich
real peoples lives.

Space toys and exploration are fun for those working on them, but will this
event transform civilisation? Nope. Did the moon landing really transform
civilisation? Nope.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
How do you know the moon landing didn't transform civilization? Did you try
living in an alternate timeline where it did not happen and find things to be
the same?

What about all those scientists who learned to build rockets, who would later
go on to help NASA launch the first weather satellites? What about the work
done that led to the formation of the global positioning system? Are you sure
it would have happened in the same timeframe by some other actors if NASA
hadn't gone to the moon? Where would the scientists have gotten their
training? What would have been the economic rationale for doing it?

Remember, too, that the moon landings were not scientific exploration. It was
a military operation to prove supremacy. The russians put a man in space one
month earlier, so Kennedy basically said "Yeah? you put a man in space? well
we'll drop one on the Moon and then bring him back!"

It was an insane commitment to proving our supremacy. We sent fighter jet
pilots on the first several missions, and didn't send a single scientist until
several missions in.

Meanwhile, exploring the origins of comets helps us understand how the early
solar system formed, which helps us understand how the universe formed, which
helps us understand physics at a fundamental level, which helps us make better
microchips, solar panels, and superconductors that make the tech in our world
better at serving our needs.

It has nothing to do with "fun for those working on them", though I'm sure
they have fun. Truck drivers probably have some fun too, but that doesn't mean
delivering goods isn't worthwhile for legitimate economic reasons. Hard
science is the same - it costs relatively little and the payoff, while
abstract, is huge.

If you want to complain about spending, complain about military spending. In
the US it is 70X NASA's budget, and 2x the military budget at the beginning of
2001. THAT is bloat. We know how to manufacture bombs. Making more doesn't do
much for innovation. Funding science does.

~~~
ButchDriveshaft
I had to create an account just to thank you for this response. I always
recommend anyone wondering about whether or not space exploration is worth it
to view the following amazing video compilations.

"We Stopped Dreaming - Episode 1":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc)

"We Stopped Dreaming - Episode 2":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFO2usVjfQc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFO2usVjfQc)

------
bd
First images from Philae's ROLIS camera:

\-----------------------

1) 3km above comet:

[https://twitter.com/DLR_de/status/532587248555143169](https://twitter.com/DLR_de/status/532587248555143169)

2) Few seconds before landing:

[https://twitter.com/nanotousch/status/532593372218023936](https://twitter.com/nanotousch/status/532593372218023936)

3) First surface image?

[http://i.imgur.com/0XK8Ar4.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/0XK8Ar4.jpg)

4) Possibly a new image from the descent?

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2QySLrCUAAZbEL.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2QySLrCUAAZbEL.jpg)

Edit: no, here is the source (Rosetta's NavCam from yesterday):

[http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/11/NAVCAM_top_1...](http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/11/NAVCAM_top_10_at_10_km_5)

\-----------------------

Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS)

[http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experimentDisplay.do?id=PHILA...](http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experimentDisplay.do?id=PHILAE%20%20%20-02)

------
sktrdie

      More analysis of @Philae2014 telemetry 
      indicates harpoons did not fire as 1st thought
    

Ouch, seems like it didn't land?
[https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/532575061543485440](https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/532575061543485440)

 _edit_ \- the landing is confirmed, however the harpoons did not fire:
[https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta/status/532579871202238464](https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta/status/532579871202238464)

~~~
masklinn
It did land, here's the next tweet:

> It looks like @Philae2014 made a fairly gentle touch down on #67P based on
> amount of landing gear damping #CometLanding

but the harpoons may have failed to fire.

~~~
easytiger
Why does it need to anchor itself? It's not like it will blow away?

~~~
ctdonath
Gravity there is so low that something like a light push may be enough to
launch. If anything used to examine the surface makes contact and presses
(drill, digger), good-bye lander.

Firing the harpoon would also be enough to launch, but at least the hook would
grab the surface and pull the lander back down, giving enough pull to drill
viable long-term anchors.

~~~
mVChr
Are there any forces in effect as it gets closer and swings around the sun
that might cause it to separate from the comet if there is no further
attachment by then?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Absolutely! If its attached, its via surface ice. That ice will all melt on
close approach to the sun. At some point the probe will drift away.

~~~
mVChr
Of course, I should have deduced that. Is the harpoon expected to go deep
enough to prevent this from happening?

------
bsaul
Anyone knows where i could find some info about the software stack this kind
of probes are being built with ? Languages, programming methods, patching
methods,os, runtime, etc.

I'm really curious to know how different it is from the web or enterprise
development worlds.

~~~
sktrdie
Most likely they have headless web browsers running on both the main
spacecraft (probably chromium) and the Philae lander. Web sockets enables the
lander to communicate to the spacecraft which then sends its signals down to
earth using regular HTTP (you don't want to keep an interstellar HTTP
connection open). All of it is of course written in JavaScript, more
specifically vanilla-JavaScript - which frankly I find weird given that I'd
hope they would use a framework such as socket.io - bad engineering if you ask
me. The lander obviously uses latest Node.js and npm to update some of its
modules which are again sent across the wire using interstellar HTTP.

~~~
adamfeldman
You joke, but FTP has indeed actually been used to communicate between Earth
and a probe. A team at NASA's JPL , led by Vinton Cerf, completed a study of
what would be needed for an Interplanetary Internet [1]. There are already
IETF RFCs for delay-tolerant networking [2], which include mechanisms for
store-and-forward communications (e.g. each transceiver is a relay).

Science fiction has some great depictions of interstellar communications, such
as my favorite by Vernor Vinge, the Hugo award-winning novel _A Fire Upon the
Deep_. It is a most excellent space opera that prominently features an
interstellar system like Usenet as part of the plot [3], as well as superhuman
intelligence, physics, and all sorts of other wonderful bits.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-
tolerant_networking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking)

[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep)

------
the_rosentotter
Coverage of this has been very confusing.

The ESA live feed at most times show people in some kind of control room
staring at screens. There is no apparent way to see any highlights, unless I
want to try scrolling back and forth through the hour-long video stream.

At any given time, various forum threads seem to have more information than
the ESA site, which seems to communicate mostly through either lighthearted
tweets, one-line headlines, or general background articles.

All I want is a simple timeline of events, constantly updated with latest news
and images. Instead we have forum threads where you have to dig through
comments to find out what is the newest info.

~~~
jarek
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science-
environment-29985988](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science-
environment-29985988)

~~~
Brakenshire
The Guardian live-blog is good as well. Less tweet-heavy than the BBC:

[http://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-
universe/live/...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-
universe/live/2014/nov/12/rosetta-comet-landing-live-blog)

~~~
collyw
The guardian seems to have made more fuss about the guys shirt than the actual
event.

------
ajuc
Wow, I listen to the solutions they invented to hibernate the probe safely -
to save on the electricity they had to hibernate it, but then it could have
change orientation relative to sun, and wouldn't have enough energy to wake
up.

So they disabled the orientation system to save energy, but first they made
the probe rotate quickly to stabilise it like a gyroscope.

That's stuff from sci-fi books / Mc Gyver movie :)

------
talltofu
Live streaming of the event here [http://news.yahoo.com/video/abc-news-plus-
special-report-220...](http://news.yahoo.com/video/abc-news-plus-special-
report-220000361.html)

Thanks @brianpgordon - Check out this gif of the orbital maneuvers required
for Rosetta to reach its destination:
[https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif](https://i.imgur.com/TUkKuhf.gif)

Live twitter feed of ESA
[https://twitter.com/esaoperations](https://twitter.com/esaoperations)

It looks like @Philae2014 made a fairly gentle touch down on #67P based on
amount of landing gear damping #CometLanding

~~~
harywilke
or straight from the ESA
[http://rosetta.esa.int/?landing](http://rosetta.esa.int/?landing)

~~~
sp332
Or the xkcd version [https://xkcd.com/1446/](https://xkcd.com/1446/) (see
older frames at [http://xkcd1446.org/](http://xkcd1446.org/), the first few
are blank so start around #16)

~~~
Kiro
What is this? What's the point?

~~~
sp332
It's a series of over 100 frames that are being drawn and uploaded live before
and during the probe launch. It illustrates the position and status of the
probe. (Edit: it's still updating)

------
spdy
For anyone who wants to see how they got there

[http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/](http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/)

pretty mind blowing for me to plan ahead 10 years

~~~
ajuc
And to near miss planets 4 times in that period just right to steal some
momentum from them through gravity...

------
k-mcgrady
Amazing job! This might be a silly question but are their any ideas as to the
actual real world benefits we could see from this? The director-general of the
ESA said "This is a big step for human civilisation" so I presume there is
some idea of what they expect to gain from this mission?

Edit: Thanks for all the replies! I'm at work now but will take a look at them
this evening.

~~~
valarauca1
The actual real world benefits of Space Flight are strange. For example the
Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the moon, that allowed us
to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war (obviously sarcasm).

Instead it gave us seemly random things, that we were looking for, but are
beneficial nonetheless and some which may not come out right away.

The Apollo Mission gave us

ASICs, Cordless Tools, CAT scan, Ear Thermometer, Smoke Detector, Shoe
insoles, carbon based water filters, satellite television (boardcasted, not
passive reflected), Scratch resistant lenses.

These things aren't why we went to the moon. Inventing them kinda just
happened to see the program though. Space travel challenges the status quo of
technology. Its really REALLY hard. So when ever we (humans) do it, we face
new problems, and our solutions sometimes have effects for those on earth.

~~~
tripzilch
> For example the Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the
> moon, that allowed us to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war
> (obviously sarcasm).

Sarcasm aside, this is more due to Geneva Conventions rather than actual lack
of Death Crystals on the moon.

~~~
valarauca1
I'm pretty sure if we had found Death Crystals on the moon we would have
figured out a way to synthesize and weaponize them on earth.

------
Killah911
It is just me or has the story evolved into something a bit less jubilant in
the course of the last two hours. It's an amazing feat, but this stuff is
always a huge gamble.

As someone's who's worked on a few spacecraft project I feel really bad for
the team(s) (recently worked on one which didn't go so well, years of work
down the tube). Even if it didn't go perfectly I hope they're commended for
the work they've done so far & the landing they achieved.

------
humanfromearth
I highly recommend this video that explains how Philae works:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77-Z_DHTlY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77-Z_DHTlY)

------
neiled
Seeing their faces on the live feed when it landed was amazing. It must be so
exciting.

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
It is so exciting, even from watching the live stream!

------
anExcitedBeast
Science is amazing. I'm glad to be living in a period where I get to be around
for stuff like this.

------
adregan
Hope this isn't a dumb question, but how does Philae stay put? If the gravity
strong enough to keep it on the surface? Also, as the comet nears the sun and
parts of the comet start flying off, is there a threat of Philae getting swept
along with it?

~~~
forgotpasswd3x
The robot deployed harpoons to fasten itself to the 2.5-mile-wide ball of ice
and dust.

~~~
a-priori
I love how simple and low-tech this solution is. People have been using
anchored ropes and cables of various kinds to fasten things together for
millennia. People have been using harpoons at sea for whaling for centuries.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I now have a picture of the lander having one ivory leg and the asteroid
called Moby Dick. Thanks, :p

------
FlyingSnake
This is an incredible day for science and Humanity. ESA, CNSA, ISRO, SpaceX
etc have done a great job so far to carry forward the legacy of NASA and
ROSCOSMOS to new levels.

Still can't believe ESA planned and landed a robot on a comet. Bravo!

------
jmccreery
No announcement yet, but just now in the ESA webcast of the control room
everyone stopped, gathered around a guy that I assume is the team lead, and
are now going home. I have a bad feeling about this.

------
jnem
Total non-sequitor but...I'm surprised no one else has yet made the
observation that Philae Lander put together is philaender, or philander.
Juvenile post of the day award anybody?

------
rabino
we just landed a friggin' robot into a friggin' commet

mind blowing

~~~
tmmm
Not really we... Just very few people, most of us have no idea how they've
done it.

------
ommunist
This is huge. In both technical and political ways. And bringing all the
details into live online event is twice as huge. I just watched the guy
reporting the unsuccessful initial anchoring of the probe, and I felt so happy
that I could see this. Incredible. By the way the lander software runs on
Harris RTX2010 processors -- the US contribution.

------
india_congrats
Congratulations Europe. But why don't we hear people saying that the EU should
focus on their poverty first and would be better off putting this money into
getting the Greece, Spain, and Italy economies in order?

~~~
jedp
I'm reminded of [http://xkcd.com/1232/](http://xkcd.com/1232/)

(Edit: Not intended to be snarky; I just think people do ask those questions
all the time, and this xkcd answers it well.)

~~~
_nedR
I am all for govt. funding scientific endeavours and space exploration like
this. But one thing I don't like about the comic is it implies that many
problems faced in the world like hunger and malaria are not easily solvable.

IMHO, It is quite simply a travesty that there is still so much absolute
poverty and deaths (through malnutrition easily curable and/or preventable
diseases) in the third world. Many of these problems were solved in the early
20th century- It is a lack of political will of governments and the collective
apathy of its citizens, who are engrossed in their own first-world problems.
To answer the xkcd comic: Yes. 15 years should be enough to at least halve
world-wide deaths due to hunger and diseases like Malaria and Cholera, If the
citizens of the first world make it a voter issue. Such endeavours will pay
themselves multiple times over. (increased human output, new trading markets
for companies, reduced population growth) And you don't need to sacrifice
funding for scientific research to do it( _coughs military budgets_ ).

------
shitlord
Awesome! Think of all the nice desktop backgrounds I'm going to have.

I am wondering what this will mean for humanity. Do you guys think the
insights we gain from Philae will be as impactful as the ones from other space
missions?

~~~
Cthulhu_
If it turns out the asteroid is full of platinum or other rare / expensive
minerals, unlike the moon which seemed barren rock, it'll be enormous and the
start of the true space age IMO.

------
rodolphoarruda
"Philae has made the first, historic landing on a comet, after descending from
its mothership"

To me, no other statement could be more impacting. Earth is finally sending
motherships to space. _feeling mind-boggled_

------
apa-sl
Awesome! Launched over 10 years ago (our "smartphones" back then had 1mpix
cameras, youtube was not born yet, etc), travelled +6,5b km and nailed a
target 3-4km wide...

------
Sven7
Big congrats to all involved! What an achievement!

------
jarmitage
Three.js version of the comet
[http://cabbi.bo/rosetta/](http://cabbi.bo/rosetta/)

------
Gravityloss
"where were you when Philae landed?"

~~~
ommunist
Actually watching the live Rosetta event from Darmstadt. And I am about to
drink for the success of this mission right now. Still can't believe it
happened. SO much work, 10 years of work. This is how international large
scale co-operation should be.

------
JulianMorrison
First _successful_ unintended lithobraking in the history of space ;-P

------
pbhjpbhj
ITT downvoting to invisibility because you disagree with someone honestly held
and cogently expressed opinions.

Silencing diverse opinions is quite possibly the worst facet of HN.

~~~
TomGullen
Libertarian world philosophy is totally bunk (if that's what you were
referring to). I down vote most of that because it's generally ridiculous.

~~~
ganzuul
But what if you were no longer allowed to hold this particular opinion? If we
generalize the postulate, it does not compute.

~~~
TomGullen
You're allowed to hold this opinion, where did I suggest you're not allowed
it?

