ESA Rosetta's lander, Philae, successfully lands on a comet!

[CaptainCrunch]

I hate to be a negative here, but wouldn't this mission be a fail, we're never going to be able to achieve what this mission wanted to achieve, we won't receive and analysis of the object.

We basically spent billions to fire a torpedo at a comet.

I'm sure that we've learned a ton if this opportunity presents itself again.

But at the moment outside of the interception of the comet by the mother ship, the landing was a failure and caused the rest of the mission to fail.

[Itse]

I don't think it's fair to say the mission failed, as the lander did have time to send some of the data they wanted back to Earth. But unless the lander re-establishes contact, I think it's fair to say it partially failed.

Very much "glass half full or half empty?" type of situation. Is it fair to call something a failure if it didn't go exactly as planned? How close to "exactly as planned" does something need to go to be a success?

One of the many reasons they want to know more about comets and asteroids is to be more prepared in case they ever need to do something about one headed for Earth. So, it's theoretically possible that the things they already learned about the comet on this mission will eventually make the difference on a mission to save us from the fate of the dinosaurs.

Or it could be that the partial failure of this mission means the difference between 500 and 5000 scientific articles written.

"Success" and "value" are tricky questions when it comes to science.

[craigwd]

From what I've read, everything that was hoped for was achieved. The loss of power just means that the "extras" won't get to be performed.

If Philae had simply crashed, or had the drill not extended, or had the data transmission been interrupted - that would have been a fail.

[Keselke]

Without going into all the positives that came out of this, that have been stated multiple times in this thread, allow me to be a slight downer for a second

I am not sure how it can be classified as a complete success, landing properly is obviously a critcal component to any future endevour. And this mission was unable to land properely, or in the specified area, if there was any living component or critical after the landing mission that had to be completed, it would of resulted in loss of life, and failure of whatever objective was desired post landing

I understand its baby steps, and hopefully this is just the start of something. I am guessing further refinements will come, just as there was failures in other milestones in previous space missions that were fixed/improved

That being said, amazing overall

[photon]

Agree it wasn't a complete success, but words like "complete success" would be an oversimplification anyway.

They got science results from all the instruments, including drilling, so that's a success. It would have been nice to get more results over time for better data, and to observe changes as the comet gets closer, so that didn't get accomplished.

But that's still a possibility since they managed to turn the lander somewhat so that may result in more sunlight and they might be able to wake it at a later date.

The nitrogen jet failing and the harpoons not firing are definitely failures, but building something custom in one shot without being able to test it in advance is really difficult.

If there'd been people on it then it would have been a lot different, not the least of which would be the ability to pilot and land rather than a autonomous landing.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by photon

Agree it wasn't a complete success, but words like "complete success" would be an oversimplification anyway.

They got science results from all the instruments, including drilling, so that's a success. It would have been nice to get more results over time for better data, and to observe changes as the comet gets closer, so that didn't get accomplished.

But that's still a possibility since they managed to turn the lander somewhat so that may result in more sunlight and they might be able to wake it at a later date.

The nitrogen jet failing and the harpoons not firing are definitely failures, but building something custom in one shot without being able to test it in advance is really difficult.

If there'd been people on it then it would have been a lot different, not the least of which would be the ability to pilot and land rather than a autonomous landing.

Agreed. It was an experiment and they have a lot of build off of now.

There are varying degrees of success any time an experiment is conducted, but scientific advancement is built off of failure as much as it is success. They accomplished something that a generation ago would have been thought nearly impossible and a few hundred years ago people would have thought was insane to even consider.

There can be a valid debate about the financial costs and rewards of space related ventures, but from a pure science perspective, I don't see this as a failure.

[Madman]

They've found it.

[Zevo]

No such thing as a failure these days. At the very least it gets a participation ribbon.

[photon]

Oh there's such a thing as failure.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Madman

They've found it.

Sheesh, it's really tucked into that shadow area

[Madman]

As bad as the shadow is, I wonder if that cliff actually saved it from skipping right off the surface back into space.

[craigwd]

Originally Posted by Madman

As bad as the shadow is, I wonder if that cliff actually saved it from skipping right off the surface back into space.

That's not the final landing site. It's just where Rosetta lost sight of it.

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11...oss-the-comet/

[CaptainCrunch]

But can we weaponize this technology.

A hyper fast skipping fridge sized bomb would make our enemies fear us.

[octothorp]

The thing that amazes me is that this was done with 10-year-old technology. Imagine, with all the improvements to robotics in the last decade, what sort of comet-lander we could build today. Just basic hardware improvements (memory/data storage, testing equipment, solar panels, batteries, etc.) would make for a much more powerful lander (although not necessarily one that would have been more successful here).

Has anyone else seen the documentary Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control? The title of it is based on a paper by an MIT professor, who believed that it would make more sense to send 100 1kg robots to explore the surface of a planet (or moon, or comet) than one 100kg robot. This mission is a perfect example of why there's validity to the 'fast, cheap, and out-of-control' idea: it's much more failure-proof than the all-eggs-in-one-basket approach that this mission had. Sometime during my lifetime, I would love to see someone try that sort of approach in space exploration. Let's just pick a planet and then bombard it with tiny explorers.

[photon]

Not all experiments scale well that way though... some things are expensive and it'd cost too much to send 100 of them, some sensors are big and heavy, some 100 wouldn't get you any better data, just 100 copies of the same thing.

I'm sure there are some cases though where it would make sense, or spend the effort on making whatever experiment smaller and cheaper first.

[bc-chris]

[nik-]

We just need to procure Imperial tech

[Bigtime]

Philae has found organic molecules on the comet.

Story just coming out now.

[ken0042]

Comet landing: Organic molecules detected by Philae

[Knut]

That pretty much makes it all worth it