Our lander’s asleep
As late as 12 November, the ESA's own FAQ [1] was stating that Philae's minimum mission target was one week of surface operation (powered entirely by primary batteries), with even more operational time powered by back-up batteries (themselves recharged by solar) - resulting in an expected surface operation period measured in months.They airbrushed the FAQ on 12 November to remove mention of the minimum one week mission target, and inserted among other things '2.5 days'. [2] A diff of the two versions would probably be interesting.Now with the lander mission prematurely ended an associated scientist is tweeting a very rosy summary [3]:"What a perfect ending. All the science completed, data received. Primary mission successful. Well done everybody."How can a week of carefully-planned scientific activities be 'completed' in only 2.5 days? It seems implausible.How did the primary and secondary batteries not power the lander for the calculated one week+ of operation?Why aren't they open about what clearly seems to be a major failure with the scientific mission?It seems a case of intense bureaucratic / political pressure to change targets after they aren't met, and the fact scientists are participating in this is pretty disappointing.[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140805030451/http://www.esa.in...[2] http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Freq...[3] https://twitter.com/rocketeddy/status/533421309553016832