Philae (spacecraft)

Philae ( as the Rosetta Lander also known ) is the name of the lander that accompanies the Rosetta spacecraft and is scheduled to land on the comet 67P/Tschurjumow-Gerasimenko. The lander was about to start the name of Philae, after an island in the Nile. Responsible for the operational part of the Philae mission, the Space Center MUSC users of the German Aerospace Center (DLR ) in Cologne.

Mission

The Philae lander is on the surface of the comet, after the mapping and analysis by Rosetta, put on. This mission section is necessary because the nature of the surface is not accurately known prior to the arrival of the probe. After separation will this s approach with about 1 m / comet and, put on by means of a gimbal-mounted ( with two degrees of freedom ) three-legged landing gear and located between the probe and the landing gear mechanism, called Bubble on the comet, without of this because of the low gravity to bounce back. Bubble has several responsibilities. It serves as a damping element for the Aufsetzmanöver on landing, allowing the lander to change its position by tilting and rotating and houses the electrical connections between the probe and the sensors in the feet. The gimbal element performs additional damping functions by braking the buckling movements in the element. The fixation on the ground is to be ensured by three ice screws, one at a Landegestellfuß, and two harpoons.

After landing on the comet's surface Philae will make various physico- chemical measurements, among others, will be trying to detect organic compounds such as amino acids in comet ice. Chiral compounds are separated and quantified in order to help understand the origin of life and the homochirality on earth into their enantiomers. The minimum life expectancy of Philae is specified by the ESA 64 hours, but the probe could work longer under certain circumstances.

Instruments

On board the lander ten instruments which make up about 26.7 kg of the 100 kg of Landers:

• APXS ( Alpha Proton X -ray Spectrometer) APXS analyzes the chemical composition of the surface beneath the lander. The instrument is an improved version of the APXS of the Mars Pathfinder
• COSAC ( Cometary Sampling and Composition The ) The device will take soil samples and detect volatile components.
• Ptolemy
• CIVA ( Comet Nucleus Infrared and Visible Analyzer)
• CONSERT ( Comet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission). Consert is using the Rosetta probe electromagnetic wave propagation measured through the core in order to draw conclusions about the internal structure and composition.
• ROMAP (Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor). ROMAP consists of a fluxgate magnetometer, a Electrostatic Analyzer and a Faraday cup. The fluxgate magnetometer has a measuring range of / - 2000 nT with a resolution of 20 pT and a frequency range from 0 to 32 Hz with the plasma monitor, ions with energies up to 8000 keV and electrons with energies up to 4200 keV be measured. An additional Penning vacuum gauge and a Pirani gauge can also measure pressures between 10-8 and 10 mbar. The magnetometer was under the auspices of the Institute for Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics ( IGEP ) at the TU Braunschweig developed in collaboration with the Institute for Space Research, Graz University of Technology and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. At the plasma monitor were the KFKI Budapest, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the IKI Moscow involved (see description of ROMAP on the homepage of IGEP ).
• SESAME (Surface Electric Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment )
• SD2 (The sampling, drilling and distribution subsystem )