Philae plays a year perched on the comet, but is approaching the end of its mission – ABC Color

BERLIN. The Philae module, which traveled into space with Rosetta, plays a year perched on the surface of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Despite their transmitters and receivers fail, it could still send signals before finally extinguished in about two months.

Those responsible for the Aerospace Center German (DLR), responsible for monitoring a Philae , offered a press conference today to review the twelve months since the module made history by landing the first time in a comet. Among the good news, the realization that the module is supported on three legs after the crash landing of a year ago.

The head of the Philae Project Stephen Ulamec also he highlighted the possibility that the module silent since last July 9 after contacting seven times, resubmit information to the probe Rosetta , which is about 200 kilometers from the module . Scientists have no security to do it, but they know that this possibility will end in January.

At present Churyumov-Gerasimenko is 245 million kilometers from distance from the sun and every day which in the last comet 12.6 hours- get about four hours of sun, enough to recharge your batteries.

The conditions, however, will worsen in the coming weeks away from the sun and lowering its temperature; if the interior of Philae low of 51 degrees celsius below zero, the module will no longer be operating and the mission will end, what will happen predictably and at the latest in January.

As explained DLR engineer Koen Geurts , if the module has received the commands sent to it, your hard drive must be loaded with scientific data. Of the captured signals, scientists deduced that one of the two receivers and one of its two transmitters do not work and the second transmitter can also have problems, which explains why communication is so irregular.

On August 13 the comet was at the closest point to the sun and, apparently, Philae exceeded the time without overheating, having landed in a place of darkness that protected him from the heat.

In the DLR continue to design strategies to enable undamaged transmitter and try to restore communication stable enough to transfer data.

The team said Ulamec, you are prepared to quickly use the instruments of Philae, take photographs and measurements if the module, which already has commands for this, is activated to achieve sufficient energy.