There's not a lot of info coming out currently, but this will update us on what is known since the awakening.
The Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR, the German Aerospace Centre) (works on Philae lander)
March 2015: Listen-for-Philae campaign starts
June 2015: Successful on 4th campaign
20:28 UTC Saturday 13 June 2015 1st Re-Contact:
85 seconds of contact, 300 packets; working temp is −35 °C (wakeup limit is −45 °C)
21:22 UTC Sunday 14 June 2015: 2nd re-contact for just 3 x 10 seconds spread over 4 minutes total
Receiving 13 watts at sunrise, 24 watts at peak. From a CNN story, it needs 6 watts of power to reboot itself, 9 watts to accept communications and 19 watts to allow two-way communication with the orbiter. Internal temperature has risen to −5 °C (needs to be at 0 °C to be able to charge batteries; receiving power for 135 minutes in each illumination period, which is twice a day) (double the illumination from that in November).
DLR then establish that data transmitted so far came from early May (data is stored when no radio link). It will take 10 days to transmit all stored info (8,000 packets; packets are 256 bytes of payload data each, with an additional 20 bytes forming the packet header in which the packet generation time is stored).
No commands can be sent to the lander until it has managed to transmit all stored data. In addition, communication between Rosetta & Philae is too fleeting to be able to transmit any commands (they need a 15 minute window). They worked out a new pattern for Rosetta which will optimise contact; that will start on 16 June.
Rosetta orientates itself by reference to the stars; it has on-board telemetry which reads the stars & from what it photographs is able to know exactly how it is positioned in space. That process is automatic, and allows it to keep it's antenna pointing directly at Earth among other things. However, since January jets of stuff have increasingly started to emerge from 67P and, on March 28, they manoeuvred Rosetta very close to the comet. The dust was so strong that it confused the orientation telemetry, and Rosetta went into "Safe Mode". After that experience they put Rosetta more than 200km away from 67P to try to make sure that it did not happen again.
The engineers have now moved Rosetta a little closer (180 km (112 miles)) but mostly they have altered the plane of it's orbit to allow longer communication.
13:20 UTC Friday 19 June 2015: 3rd re-contact 19 minutes transferring 185 packets
Operating temperature is now 0 °C, whilst external temperature at daybreak is -36 °C.
One reflective thought is that the extraordinary event of the triple-bounce on landing has actually put Philae into a position where it can now report at Perihelion (closest approach to the Sun, on 13 August). In it's original, planned position (which ESA called "Agilkia") it would have lasted until sometime in March 2015, as Philae cannot survive above 40 °C.
Scientists are eager to be able to use Philae's instruments. Once again they plan to start with low-risk experiments & progress from there:-
SESAME(PP) / ROMAP / MUPUS TM
CONSERT / CIVA-P / ROLIS / SESAME (DIM+CASSE)
CONSERT: Comet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radio wave Transmission (actually on Rosetta but interacts with lander)
APXS: Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer
CIVA: Comet Infrared and Visible Analyser
CIVA-P: seven identical cameras that produced a panoramic image from Philae's resting site. It is designed to characterise the landing site, mapping the surface topography and the albedo (reflectivity) of the surface. Two of the cameras are aligned so as to produce stereoscopic images.
CIVA-M: two miniaturised microscopes, one of which operates in visible light and the other in infrared. These are mounted on the base plate of the philae lander and are designed to analyse samples delivered by the SD2 system for texture, albedo and mineral composition.
COSAC: Cometary Sampling and Composition (this one is designed to identify organic, carbon-based molecules).
Ptolemy: similar to COSAC & also fed by SD2 system, mass spectrography with 4 ovens, designed for light elements (CNO)
MUPUS: Multi Purpose Sensors for Surface and Subsurface Science (temperature sensors fastened to a 35 cm long penetrator)
ROLIS: Rosetta Lander Imaging System (downward-pointing miniaturised CCD camera)
ROMAP: Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor
SD2: Sample Drilling and Distribution
SESAME: Surface Electric Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment(3 combined):
CASSE: The Cometary Acoustic Surface Sounding Experiment
PP: The Permittivity Probe
DIM: The Dust Impact Monitor
67P is darker than our moon. The ESA photos make it look like snow in places, but that is because the albedo of the photo has been altered. That darkness comes from organic material. Scientists are fantastically excited by this!
67P (and all comets) are 4+ billion year old remnants of the proto-solar cloud from which this solar system was made. Therefore, the fact that 67P turns out to be ice & dust held together by organic stuff (rather than dust + organics held together by ice) says that those organics were synthesized within that fantastically ancient cloud and has thus accreted within the bulk of 67P, is being ejected when heated & thus coats the surface. The scientists are desperate for more experiments to get more data.
Officially, Rosetta finishes December 2015. They are hoping to get funding to continue until September 2016. They then plan (possibly) to spiral Rosetta slowly down to rest on 67P's surface. For eternity.
