15 June 2015

After seven months' in hibernation, the Rosetta lander that landed on the comet last November has woken up and started sending data packages back to Earth. Two contacts were made in just over 24 hours

Philae has come out of the state of hibernation it entered on 15 November last year. The lander's first contact in seven months of silence, despite repeated attempts to communicate by theRosetta orbiter since 12 March, lasted 85 seconds and took place at 10.28 pm on Saturday 13 June.
"We can confirm that Philae's adventure is continuing!” commented Italian Space Agency President, Roberto Battiston. He added that "the lander's awakening is brilliant news that, apart from making us dream, makes us very proud of the reliability of the technology used, much of which is Italian".
Philae sent Rosetta, and therefore Earth, more than 300 data packages to be processed and analysed by the international team in charge of the mission.
Stephan Ulamec, Philae project manager at DLR (the German Space Agency), explained that "the lander is now ready for operations, with a functioning temperature of -35 degrees Celsius and 24 Watts available power".
An initial examination showed that Philae must have been awake for a while, because the data sent in those few seconds date back at least 1.5 comet days. The international team is expecting to receive more than 8,000 data packages.
Less than 25 hours later, at 11.22 pm (Italian time) on 13 June, a second, longer contact was made. This time, Philae communicated with Rosetta for around 4 minutes. Although the connection was less stable, and only a few data packages were transmitted, the contact confirmed that Philae is in good condition.
ASI's Mario Salatti, co-project manager for the lander, explained: "The lander control team and the control centre for the whole mission are now working to improve visibility, in terms of the geometric position of Philae with respect to Rosetta, which is currently orbiting at around 200 km from the comet's surface".