Reply to: We can land a probe on a comet 300 million miles away.....

[NickFitz]

I worked here once

Who would have thought the market day bus service between Yeadon and Guisely was so complicated to operate?

[NotAllThere]

I worked here once

[suityou01]

Nobody likes a story topper

[darmstadt]

Just passing on. One of my colleagues went to Uni with a science journalist who is closer than you or I to the goings on.

Not as close as me, I only live 5 minutes walk from the control room And where I used to work:



And the end result of my work:

[stek]

I don't see what's so difficult, it's not rocket science is it?

[quackhandle]

Can't they send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in a Shuttle to fix it?

Please God no Aerosmith ballads.

Liv Tyler in a flimsy dress yes.

qh

[NotAllThere]

Can't they send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in a Shuttle to fix it?

xkcd.com

[stek]

Can't they send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in a Shuttle to fix it?

[suityou01]

The harpoons didn't fire.

Still, you would have thought that a team of rocket scientists would have thought of that some time in the twenty-five years they've been working on it.

Oh, hang on, they did: the idea was that a thruster on top of it would fire at the same time as the harpoons were shot into the surface, to counteract the recoil.

Just passing on. One of my colleagues went to Uni with a science journalist who is closer than you or I to the goings on.

This is what he said :

The harpoons did not fire.
The thruster did not fire.
The screws did not activate.
The first bounce was 450m high, and lasted 2 hours.
The second bounce only lasted 8 minutes. So it landed 3 times.

As the screws did not activate it is not currently possible to drill into the rock to take samples as the net weight of the thing is only 4 grammes and it would just lift off if the drill was deployed.

The orbiter gets line of sight this morning and they will assess the situation further.

Not game over, but very, very complicated.

Hope this helps.

[suityou01]

Check out this picture of the runway marshall

[NotAllThere]

Current status is that it has landed (twice) and is still landed, and is stable.

[suityou01]

The harpoons didn't fire.

Still, you would have thought that a team of rocket scientists would have thought of that some time in the twenty-five years they've been working on it.

Oh, hang on, they did: the idea was that a thruster on top of it would fire at the same time as the harpoons were shot into the surface, to counteract the recoil.

Redundancy. And I don't mean the scientists.

[NickFitz]

Apparently it appears it might have bounced when the anchoring harpoons fired.

Now it's easy for me to be an armchair rocket scientist, but a few hours ago I was pondering how they were going to attach it to the surface. I was thinking - they can't use harpoons because of Newton's third law - equal and opposite reaction and all that

The harpoons didn't fire.

Still, you would have thought that a team of rocket scientists would have thought of that some time in the twenty-five years they've been working on it.

Oh, hang on, they did: the idea was that a thruster on top of it would fire at the same time as the harpoons were shot into the surface, to counteract the recoil.

[centurian]

Apparently it appears it might have bounced when the anchoring harpoons fired.

Now it's easy for me to be an armchair rocket scientist, but a few hours ago I was pondering how they were going to attach it to the surface. I was thinking - they can't use harpoons because of Newton's third law - equal and opposite reaction and all that

[darmstadt]

Humor'ish