Philae

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) comet lander Philae, which went into hibernation on the surface of Comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko last November, has come online.

The agency reported that the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany has received signals from the robot.

The Lander Control Center at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) teams have evaluated more than 300 data packets.

Philae communicated through Rosetta with its team on ground for approximately 85 seconds.

DLR Philae project manager Dr Stephan Ulamec said: "Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35 °C and has 24W available.

"The lander is ready for operations."

Philae’s memory is said to host more than 8,000 data packets, which will help scientists identify what happened to the lander in the past few days on comet 67P.

On 12 November 2014, Philae was successfully placed on the comet by the Rosetta spacecraft for the first time in the history of space exploration.

"Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35 °C and has 24W available."

After being in operation for approximately 60 hours, the 100kg-lander shut down on 15 November.

The communication unit on Rosetta orbiter has been in search for the lander since March.

Philae is designed to carry out various scientific experiments on the comet, and analyse the surface chemical composition, to gain insights into the solar system’s 4.6 billion year history.

The Rosetta was launched on-board an Ariane rocket in March 2004 to study the Jupiter-family comet and its environment.

Image: An artist’s impression of Philae touchdown on the surface of comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Photo: courtesy of ESA / ATG medialab.