Rosetta’s Lander says “Can You Hear Me Now?”

I woke up today to great news that the Rosetta mission’s Philae lander has been awake for a short time now and finally was able to phone home. The mission controllers reported that it talked with the ground team for about 85 seconds, sending data. More than 300 packets have been analyzed and the team is hoping to retrieve more than 8,000 data packets stored on the lander’s onboard memory.  That information would give the science teams a good look at the most recent experiences Philae has had since waking up at some point before it phoned home.

This is really fantastic news, folks. It means that — if Philae stays awake and communicative — that we’ll have “boots on the ground” during the comet’s perihelion passage in mid-August. We’ll get reports from the comet as it warms up during closest approach to the Sun, and get some great images of the landscapes during that time, not to mention temperature and other data.

Want to follow along on Philae’s adventure? I’ll write about it as it comes and you can always go check out the Rosetta Blog for the latest updates!  I’ve written more about the Rosetta mission here and here.

Good to hear from you, Philae!  And, now Rosetta scientists can figure out just where you’re resting by using your signals to triangulate in on you.