Rosetta tracks Philae's cometary

bouncedown
By David Szondy
November 17, 2014

Photo mosaic showing Philae's approach, landing, and bounce (Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for
OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an image mosaic taken by the Rosetta
mothership showing the Philae landers November 12 touchdown on comet 67P/Churyumov
Gerasimenko. The composite image shows the unmanned spacecraft making its approach to the
surface of 67/P and its first rebound after its anchoring harpoons failed to deploy, along with
timestamps in GMT (lander time) and images contrasting the touch sites before and after
landing.
The mosaic was created using images taken over a 30 minute period using Rosettas OSIRIS
narrow-angle camera from an altitude of about 15.5 km (9.6 mi) and at a resolution of 28
cm/pixel. According to ESA, the before and after images show an apparent dust cloud kicked up
by Philaes landing as well as the spacecrafts shadow as it moved after its rebound to the East at
0.5 m/s (1.6 ft/s). This course was confirmed by the COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by
Radiowave Transmission (CONSERT) experiment that measures radio waves between the lander
and orbiter as they pass through the comets nucleus.
After its first bounce, Philae bounced a second time at 17:25 GMT before coming to rest at 17:32
GMT. The trouble is, no one knows exactly where. ESA hopes that by using the data from

CONSERT, the Rosetta OSIRIS and navigation cameras, and the landers ROLIS and CIVA it
will be possible to triangulate on the landers position.