Philae’s descent: closing in on the landing site
The final steps of Philae’s descent towards Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014, as seen by a hypothetical observer close to the landing site on the comet.
The background image was taken by Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on 14 September 2014 from a distance of about 30 km.
Philae was provided by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI.
Credit: ESA/ATG medialab; background image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
That was a good predicament. Unfortunately, the lander failed to deploy it’s landing systems and bounced off the comet! TWICE! It then landed in shadow close to sunlight, and before “hibernating” in shadow, it extended the solar panels into the sunlight and made brief experiments on the comet before shutting down.