The European Space Agency (ESA) has decided to stop trying to contact the long-silent Philae comet lander.
The robotic lander nearly crashed onto the surface of a comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which was racing through the Earth’s solar system.
The probe provided scientific inputs back to Earth before its batteries lost power and remained silent since July. The probe’s mothership Rosetta will continue its scientific investigations at the comet until September before reaching its final stage.
The team involved with Philae and located in Germany, French and Italy’s space centres and across Europe tried to re-establish contact with the lander.
It was found that apart from having a faulty thruster, Philae failed to fire its harpoons and lock itself onto the surface of the comet, bouncing several times from its original touchdown point to a new landing site.
Researchers are yet to confirm the exact location of Philae, which started its scientific activities in November 2014.
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By GlobalDataIn January, before coming to its final end, engineers and scientists at German Aerospace Center (DLR) decided to send a final command to Philae to spin up its flywheel so that it could shake off the dust on its solar panels to resume work.
DLR Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec said: "The chances for Philae to contact our team at our lander control centre are unfortunately getting close to zero.
"We are not sending commands anymore and it would be very surprising if we were to receive a signal again."
Philae, after being separated from Rosetta, completed 805 of its initial planned scientific activities. It took detailed images of the comet from above and on the surface, discovered organic compounds and provided data on the local environment and surface materials of the comet.
Due to insufficient sunlight falling on Philae’s new landing site to charge its secondary batteries, the probe is now said to be in permanent hibernation.
Image: Reconstructing Philae’s trajectory across comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Photo: courtesy of ESA / Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA.
