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On Nov 12, a human-made space lab will try to HARPOON a COMET and land on it
Screw flying cars – THIS is science fact
Pic The European Space Agency (ESA) has officially set the date for its Rosetta probe's Philae lander to touch down on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The craft will harpoon and set down on the high-speed cosmic rock on November 12.
ESA hoping for a safe touchdown
The Rosetta space probe is orbiting the comet at a distance of 10 kilometres. On October 31 the ESA team will push the probe into a wider orbit and at 0835 UTC on November 12, the Philae lander will detach from Rosetta and start moving towards its target. It should land about seven hours later.
"Now that we know where we are definitely aiming for, we are an important step closer to carrying out this exciting – but high-risk – operation," says Fred Jansen, ESA's Rosetta mission manager.
"However, there are still a number of key milestones to complete before we can give the final Go for landing."
The space agency has already picked the landing site: Philae will approach at about one metre per second. Two harpoons on the lander will fire into the surface and anchor it in position.
Philae is then on a tight timeline. The machine has enough battery power to carry out 64 hours of science experiments, but it does come equipped with solar panels that should extend its lifespan. That will depend on how much dust accumulates on the solar cells.
The lander has 10 tools to investigate the comet, which right now is 481 million km from Earth. These include a drill capable of bringing up samples from 23 centimeters down and conveying them to an oven for chemical analysis, a combined gas chromatograph and time-of-flight mass spectrometer, and a sonar system to give a view of the internal structure of the rock.
No matter how clean Philae's solar cells are, the lander is ultimately doomed. By March 2015, the comet will come very close to the Sun and the lander will almost certainly perish from the heat.
By August the comet will make its closest approach to the star, and cook Philae – if it isn't damaged by outgassing as the rock heats up and starts to seriously melt. Rosetta will remain in orbit chronicling the changes, however, and act as a relay station for Philae's data while it can. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
