Philae now lies somewhere in the dark on Comet 67P. Its batteries drained, it has gone into hibernation, probably for the last time. Its story was nothing short of dramatic, exciting, and seemingly tragic for so many of us here on Earth unable to do anything but watch the little lander die from 300 million kilometers away.
And yet, it was one of humanity’s finest hours.
If you were to stop reading this post right now and head on over to phoenixpic’s post about Philae’s brief, but highly successful race-against-the-clock mission, I’d be totally cool with that. It’s a well-told tale that puts a lot of the events into its proper context.
But I remain in awe of just what an amazing success the Philae lander was. Despite its failed downward thruster, bouncing not once but twice away from its planned landing site, its harpoon system not being fired, a lens cap not coming off its spectrometer, ending up in the shadow of a cliff, deprived of the sunlight it badly needed to recharge its batteries, despite all of those things….Philae still managed to fulfill its mission.
Think about that for a second. Against all odds, all of the available science instruments on board Philae were able to sample a 5 billion year-old relic from the formation of the solar system. Ok sure we’re not going to be able to go into an extended mission with Philae. We’ll never be able to see a beautiful panorama of the surface and watch it gently erupt as it draws nearer to the Sun.
But there is a ton of data already gathered and much, much more to come from the Rosetta orbiter itself. We’ve come a long way, and there is much to be learned. This is what Ambition looks like.