Philae, the first vehicle to land on a comet – the associated press.it

As in an adventure novel, has kept the world with bated breath, from the drop-down on the comet, upon landing, to the tumble that has made it remain in the dark and stuck in a ravine: Philae was the first vehicle built by the man landed on the soil of one of these fossils of the Solar System and was the travelling companion of the probe that concluded today its mission.

Made by a consortium which was also attended by the Italian Space Agency (Asi), the lander Philae of the european mission Rosetta was launched on 2 march 2004. He had faced throughout his long journey of over 10 years sleeping embraced to the probe of the European Space Agency, but the joint in the vicinity of the comet, the two are separated. Rosetta studied comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by going around it, while the lander on 12 November 2014, has started a descent to chills, which lasted 7 hours, which kept everyone in suspense. But when, finally, the worst seemed past, and fell to the ground, and have driven the harpoons and Philae rebounded three times on the surface and ended up wedged in a ravine, at a place called Abydos, on the lobe smaller of the comet.

The probe has lost contact with Philae after a couple of days after landing, but has never stopped looking for him, flying over the comet and taking pictures of the surface. In June of 2015 had rekindled the hope of restarting the vehicle: the approach of the comet to the Sun had, in fact, allowed the solar panels of Philae have the energy necessary to re-establish communications. But unfortunately the contacts were brief and intermittently and permanently closed on 9 July.

In the photos where it was found, taken by Rosetta on September 2 last, you can see the lander hovering and you immediately understand why its panels have not been unable to gather the energy to communicate and successfully perform all of the experiments, in particular the drill Italian Sd2, created by Leonardo-Finmeccanica, under the scientific responsibility of Amalia Ercoli Finzi, Politecnico of Milan. However, Philae has taken advantage of the few hours of battery life to the maximum from the unfortunate conditions and despite the accident was able to bring many of its objectives. Even the ‘ruzzolone’ has also been providential: it has allowed to collect data from unexpected thanks to which it has been discovered that the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko does not have a magnetic field