Mission
Philae's mission is to land successfully on the surface of a comet, and transmit data from the surface about the comet's composition. Unlike the Deep Impact probe, it is not an impactor. A check of the instruments indicated no major problems in 2006. Some of the instruments and the lander were used for the first time as autonomous systems during the Mars flyby on February 25, 2007. ÇIVA, the camera system, returned some images while the Rosetta instruments were powered down; ROMAP took measurements of the Martian magnetosphere. Most of the other instruments need contact with the surface for analysis and stayed offline during the flyby.
Read more about this topic: Philae (spacecraft)
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“We never can tell how our lives may work to the account of the general good, and we are not wise enough to know if we have fulfilled our mission or not.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“The mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. Divine Providence has a mission for her children to fulfill; though a mission unrecognized by political economists. There is ever a moral balance preserved in the universe, like the vibrations of the pendulum. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)