Filas can come to life by March 2015

Work is possible early next summer.

According to Michael Maybaum, a system engineer for Fila, an attempt to awaken the device can be made in March next year. Seasonal changes in the illumination of the "hemispheres" of the comet and its approach to the Sun can provide enough light for the probe to work. If Filas wakes up, scientists will have time to complete the research program. Now, even though the landing was not entirely successful, 80-90% of the target has been fulfilled.



The source is the answer to one of the users in the question and answer session on the Reddit website:

We expect enough energy to load in March next year. Then the Filas will need to be warmed up until we can consider starting to charge the batteries. Therefore, enough energy to start the system, warm up and charge, or other operations can be hoped to get in early summer. Once charging has begun, it may take several comet days to complete it. [mm]

Comet days are understood to mean the turnover of comet 67P / Churyumov - Gerasimenko around its axis every 12.4 hours, that is, the “day” of the comet is about two times shorter than the earthly ones.

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From other interesting answers:

Well, this is not really a battery problem! It was assumed that the batteries would be recharged by solar panels, but since the Fila bounced off several times after the first touch, the device was in the shadow almost all the time (about an hour of sunlight every 12-hour comet day). It's like trying to power a house with solar panels in the winter in Alaska under the Arctic Circle. We are not sure where Filas is, but if this is the place that is considered by some as the most likely, seasonal changes in the Filov’s hemisphere closer to spring will give the device several months more sunlight. This, together with the fact that the comet is approaching the Sun, should warm up the batteries sufficiently to accept and hold the charge. That is, it is not the batteries that should be blamed, but the Filas, which went into the winter half for hibernation. ma [ Michael Ahern answered the question . ]

Now "Fila" is in hibernation, because it does not receive enough solar energy to function, and the charge of chemical batteries is exhausted. The exact location of the probe is unknown - due to a malfunction of the harpoons, it bounced a few kilometers from the estimated point of commutation.



Ahern also said that the Rosetta cameras are now searching for Filas. High resolution photos have already been taken and are in line for transmission to Earth. The complexity of the communication can be estimated by the delay of the signal from the device - 28 minutes .



When asked which of the discoveries was the most important, Ahern said that there was no consensus in the team. The Rosetta data showed that at such a distance evaporation does not proceed as it was previously thought. For Ahern, the fact of the presence of a hard surface under the soft surface, seen from the data of the Fila probe, was the most important. For Martin Knapmeier, this also came as a surprise, he also noticed that the mission was “lucky” to choose an object with the most bizarre form in the entire solar system.



Scientists have enough computing power of devices launched more than 10 years ago. Modern smartphones have much greater performance indicators, but they simply will not survive in space.

The 20-year-old technology worked almost perfectly. The most negative for Fila was limited computing power and memory. What we could install there today (a 800 MHz processor and a few megabytes of memory) seems like something from another world. (ek) [Kurt Eckhard answered the question. The Phila has a 10 MHz processor and kilobytes of memory .]

Podreddit / r / IAmA often appears in the news of any news agencies due to the opportunity to ask your question to people with whom you could hardly talk to in ordinary life - presidents , astronauts , popularizers of science . The format of communication involves the creation of a separate post with confirmation of identity, in the comments to which users ask questions. Podreddit has a schedule of appearance of question and answer sessions with celebrities.



To read the remaining questions (which concern a lot: from space to wearable shirts) and answers, you need knowledge of the English language, and it is more convenient to do this in tabular form . Based on The Register .