Contact restored with Rosetta

Lander is "stable" despite concerns over harpoons

Researchers have re-established communication with the Philae space probe, which made history yesterday by landing on a comet.

The lander was described as "stable" despite concerns after a harpoon which was meant to tether it to the surface of the 2.5 mile-wide comet failed to deploy.

Rosetta project scientist Dr Matt Taylor said the European Space Agency was receiving a good signal and receiving data.

He said: "Now we are busy analysing what it all means and really trying to find out where the lander actually is on the surface."

Philae touched down yesterday after a 10 year, four billion-mile journey through space in an achievement hailed as one of the greatest in science.
Scientists hope the probe will yield insights into the origins of our Solar System.

Philae landed in a soft area on the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet and dipped around 1.6in before bouncing back up when its harpoon failed to fire.

It went straight back up for two hours and drifted out into space before descending to the surface, bouncing again for a few minutes before settling in what Taylor described as "three landings for the price of one".

"The descent was due on to a particular point on the surface of the comet; the bounce would have made it go up and then the comet's rotating underneath," he said.

"So we know, if we are looking at an image, that most likely the lander is somewhere on the right and now we are trying to refine that to really start focusing on the orbiter images to see where it is.

"In the next few hours we hope to be piecing the data we get on the lander to add this all together."