“Fila” asleep forever – BBC

«Fila”: flying with the comet

After landing probe “Fila” on the surface of the comet Churyumov – Gerasimenko (67P) in November 2014 and a few days of work the engineers of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have been forced to send the unit to sleep because of a failed landing, which resulted in the probe was almost deprived of sunlight needed to recharge the batteries.

In June 2015 Department of Science “Gazety.Ru» writing that the probe “Fila” suddenly woke up after seven months of forced “hibernation” because the comet close to the sun. However, within a few weeks of communication was once again lost, and experts ESA and DLR have spent the last six months in an attempt to restore it.

Comet Churyumov – Gerasimenko removed further from Sun, and a few weeks later at the nucleus of the comet is too cold and dark to work, “Phil».

On Sunday, January 10 experts from DLR made a last desperate attempt to contact the lander.

The engineers were going to trigger the so-called landing wheel – device rotation is stabilized, “Fila” during landing on a comet. Its inclusion would allow to clean the surface of solar panels from dust and may have caused the device to move to more sunlight lighting zone on the surface of the comet’s nucleus.

«We have not heard anything, – said the project manager Stefan Ulamek of the German Space Agency. – So far we have not received a response signal ».

According to the researchers, in the best case, the probe” Fila “received a command from the ground and moved, but was unable to send a response signal because of damage to the transmitter. Though, most likely, the signal has not been adopted.

In the coming days, experts will try to contact the unit and send it some other teams, but most likely, the connection with “Filami” definitively lost. “We must face the truth: every day the chances of contact with the module is becoming smaller and smaller as the distance of the comet from the Sun – says Ulamek. – At some point we will have to accept the fact that we no longer get the signal from the module ».

« Rosetta “: an orbit all right

The orbital companion” Phil ” – “Rosetta” – made pictures of the landing site of the module. Researchers have tried to find traces of movement on them, “Phil,” but “Rosetta” is too far from the comet that could be seen on the unit received images. Loss module also means that some of the data collected will remain undeciphered. “It is a bit sad that we can not get the new data module after waking up in June – said Ulamek. – We must be satisfied with the data obtained in November 2014 ».

At the same time in September this year, when the mission “Rosetta” will come to an end, mission managers plan to hold the orbiter at close to the surface of the comet’s orbit, eventually touching the surface of the comet’s nucleus.

«Rosetta” look on the probe for the last time, to shoot a close-up the last resting place of “Phil».

«We must clearly see the landing module, it will help us to interpret the data that we received in November 2014 “, – says Ulamek.

Comet: ice there

While the engineers are trying to contact” Filami “scientists decode the data obtained with the” Rosetta “. Published this week an article in the journal Nature informs that on the surface of the comet Churyumov – Gerasimenko, there is water ice.

Previous studies have confirmed the presence of water vapor in the coma (a cloud of dust and gas, surrounding the nucleus) of the comet Churyumov – Gerasimenko. Water, as we know, is a major component of cometary nuclei.

However, the presence of large areas of water ice on the surface of comets was uncertain until now.

The authors used data from the infrared spectrometer instrument on board the “Rosetta” to determine the presence of water ice on the surface of the comet in an area called Imhotep. This area is located close to the equator of the comet and stands relatively flat shape and surface topography is rich in geological structure.

Scientists have quantified the content of ice on the surface and grain size. Grains were found pure water ice millimeter size – more than that observed before, and grain size of 50 microns, mixed with a dark material lot. Although the condensation of vapors, usually leads to the formation of small, micron sized grains, the authors suggest that large grains millimeter size resulted from inadvertent exposure and subsequent diffusion of vapor to ice-rich layers within a comet or by agglomeration of fine grain ice. These processes are in good agreement with the presence of the layered structure of the nucleus of comet Churyumov – Gerasimenko, wherein the outer layer of the bark dehydrated enriched hide water ice layers.