Philae Deployment Options

[EMac]

Anyone else going to watch this? I don't plan to be up at 1:35AM when they release it, but should be able to catch the touchdown in the morning.

ESA's Rosetta Site

[CP]

I would agree, quite an achievement all in all! Seems like it was a planned "soft crash" in case such a situation occurred that both slowing rockets and harpoons did not fire. I think they said 3 soft bounces that ended it up in a shadow. Hopefully the solar panels see some sun before the batts are toast, there will be some very interesting things learned from this mission over time.

Watching the spokes people speak after the landing, I thought it was amusing how the missions "goal" was so delicately worded so as to keep public and politicians interest in the future space programs. Water is what they hope to find which will be a huge step to moving forward with our ability to further space exploration. What the end game actually is though, over coming the weight launching hurdles........once we find a good source of water out there, that will enable us to make fuel for rockets and human consumption, then in turn we can start to produce materials to build ships, stations etc for human use in space. Build it up there, then it doesn't have to be launched out of earths gravity.
Guess that means we'll be up there doing some MINING!! WOOOHOOOO! Oh shhhh! Don't say that out loud, we are after water.