Rosetta`s lander Philae speaks after 7 months in hibernation

Washington : After spending 7 long months in hibernation on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Rosetta’s lander Philae woke up and “spoke” with its team on ground for 85 seconds. ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt received signals at 22:28 CEST on 13 June, and over 300 data packets have been analysed by the teams. DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec explained that Philae has been doing very well and is ready for operations. It has an operating temperature of -35 C and has 24 Watts available. They also found that Philae must have been awake earlier, but had not been able to contact them. It had shut down on 15 November 2015 at 1:15 CET after being in operation on the comet for about 60 hours. Since 12 March 2015 the communication unit on orbiter Rosetta was turned on to listen out for the lander.