ESA approved plans to land a Philae probe on the comet Churyumova-Gerasimenko

For the day, the European Space Agency (ESA) has published plans for the coming month to disembark the Philae probe to the surface of the cometary nucleus. Earlier it was reported that the landing will be made on November 12, now it is - the official date. As a landing point, it was decided to leave the previously selected site J. By the way, the scientists plan to name the point with the name chosen by one of the fans of astronautics and the project itself. You can suggest your own name / title here .


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Before the landing of the Rosetta station, it will be necessary to carry out a special maneuver, which will give the “unloaded” probe the correct trajectory, which will allow (hopefully without problems) to land on the surface of the comet's core. Now even the landing time is already known - it will be 11:35 Moscow time.

The maneuver will begin after the station is located at a distance of approximately 20.5 kilometers from the comet. The results of separating the Philae probe from Rosetta will be known as early as 12:03, and the results of the descent of the probe to the comet's surface will be clear as early as 19:00. It is worth remembering that now the time of the radio signal from the station to the Earth is 28 minutes and 20 seconds.


The planned landing point of the probe. The photo was taken on September 14, with a resolution of 0.5 meters per pixel.

According to one of the project team members, if something goes wrong, the operation will have to be repeated (and it’s already good that the scientists will have a second chance, there is simply no ordinary way).

Immediately after separation, the probe will photograph the mother station outside, and then, even before landing, it will take samples of dust, gas and plasma. Upon landing, photos will also be taken, which we will be able to see within a few hours after landing.



The initial battery charge of the device is enough for at least 64 hours of operation, after that everything will depend on the amount of energy received by the solar panels of the module. Under optimal conditions, the probe will be able to work until March, after which the surface temperature, due to the convergence of the comet with the Sun, will become very high, and the module will fail.

Rosetta will be watching the comet for a few more months.