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ESA's Philae Comet Lander Wakes Up - Printable Version

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ESA's Philae Comet Lander Wakes Up - Yazata - Jun 14, 2015

The Philae comet lander, which unfortunately found itself in shadow that rendered its solar panels inoperative several months ago, and put itself into hibernation mode when its batteries became depleted, has come alive again and has communicated with Earth through its Rosetta mother-ship.

Mission Control in Darmstadt Germany seems to think that it's now powered up anough to do much of the science it was originally intended to do. I'm guessing that the Sun is now at a different angle, relative to Philae.

Apparently it tried to phone home earlier but couldn't get through, and has quite a bit of data in its on-board memory that it wants to send.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2015/06/rosettas-philae-lander-wakes-up-from-hibernation