

Landing on a Comet, 317M Miles from Home - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/12/science/space/rosetta-philae-comet-landing.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

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danso
The mediocre engineer in me can't look at those photos and just appreciate
them...all I can think about is...geez, the _mechanical acuity_ to took to
make sure all the moving pieces moved...from the shutter to the antenna that
receives the signal and transmits the data...at the right time, 300+ million
miles away. What a party those engineers must he having right now.

Came across the other NYT news article on this...this is the kind of detail
that I imagine must keep those rocket engineers up for many nights during and
after launch:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/science/space/european-
spa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/science/space/european-space-
agencys-spacecraft-lands-on-comets-surface.html?rref=homepage)

> The operation proceeded despite a few small glitches and one potential
> showstopper problem: an apparent failure of a thruster that was to fire
> right after touchdown to press the lander against the comet’s surface. A pin
> was supposed to break a wax seal on the gas tank, but repeated attempts did
> not appear to succeed.

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doragcoder
I'm thinking the same thing, and adding that they launched it 10 years ago...
and had to avoid planets and other space junk while doing a crazy orbit until
it could fling of to meet the comet at a precise location... But I wonder if
engineers can change things a bait after launch with thrusters?

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cs702
Wow. Those photos of the comet are just amazing.

I know those photos are real, and I know our understanding of the universe has
made them possible, but they still seem like science-fiction magic to me. I'm
still looking at them in awe.

Thank you for sharing them.

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jckt
The ESA has their own Flickr album of the Rosetta mission (with more pics),
for anyone interested

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/sets/72157...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/sets/72157638315605535/)

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robocaptain
It landed but the harpoon did not fire. I'm not sure what that means, but XKCD
is live-drawing the event and has the Philae Lander's status as ???, so now
I'm worried.

[http://xkcd.com/](http://xkcd.com/)

[http://xkcd1446.org/](http://xkcd1446.org/)

[https://twitter.com/Philae2014](https://twitter.com/Philae2014)

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thescrewdriver
That's 510 million kilometers for the rest of the world.

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danso
Normally I would've considered your comment a bit too glib...but in my total
ignorance of this mission, I had assumed it was a NASA project. If the
headline had mentioned "kilometers" \-- and I can't imagine the metric system
_not_ being used by engineers regardless of nationality -- I don't think I
would've been so quick to assume it was a NASA accomplishment.

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rakoo
> and I can't imagine the metric system not being used by engineers regardless
> of nationality

You must be aware of the Mars Climate Orbiter incident [0] that metric people
are quick to raise when dealing with this.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure)

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jstalin
I'm stunned that there is a dusty surface that looks like sand. How much
gravity does the comet have?

~~~
joezydeco
"The acceleration due to gravity on the surface of Churyumov–Gerasimenko has
been estimated for simulation purposes at 10^(−3) m/s^2, or about one ten-
thousandth of that on Earth."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko)

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b_emery
So it seems safe to say that a 'landslide' will not occur (as suggested by one
of the captions). Instead, a boulder might break off and float away? The whole
thing must be held together by the chemical bonds inherent to the material.

~~~
joezydeco
Hard to say. The whole point of sending a robot to the comet is to see what
it's made of and how the surface is set up. It could be all loose snow, it
could be rock, could be something else.

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ttty
Why the Comet 67P/C-G, as seen by the European Southern Observatory’s Very
Large Telescope array (
[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/08/rosetta...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/08/rosetta-
philae/assets/140811_Rosetta_comet_observed_with_Very_Large_Telescope.jpg) )
is so different than close-up? Here for example, I can't see any trails or
fire. Is also white instead of orange? Can be this caused by the speed?
[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/08/rosetta...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/08/rosetta-
philae/assets/140813_Comet_on_13_August_2014_-_NavCam.jpg)

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greglindahl
The sensors involved are very unlike the human eye, and unlike each other. And
they aren't color, either, anything that shows color involves adding together
several monochrome images taken with different filters.

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spiritplumber
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykzg5X41-_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykzg5X41-_E)
What blows my mind is that "a million miles away from home" isn't at all far
away as far in a space context. (Link goes to cheesy song)

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pimlottc
> (Link goes to cheesy song)

And I thought for sure it was going to be this one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk)

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cheing
I studied telecommunications and this stuff is really fascinating. From job
prospects though your options are fairly limited.

Does anyone know what type of waves are used for commucation at such large
distance ? I know satellite uses microwave communication but not sure what
could they possibly using for communicating to 317 M miles ? Do they use
booster and amplifier satellites intermediaries ? I would interested to know
more about signal and communication setup and instruments used.

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jaseemabid
Rocket science for the Europeans, still miles and yards for Americans.

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fintler
"The first trillionaire in the world is going to be the person who first mines
the asteroid belt" -NDT

