Interstellar Off Grid

As a break from the ordinary, I think it’d be fun to speculate on the off grid capabilities of the newly landed Philae probe on comet 67P. Now that the probe has settled down somewhat.

Obviously it’s a different situation in space. Here are some interesting facts:

From the Makers: “The solar cells in Rosetta's solar panels are based on a completely new technology, so-called Low-intensity Low Temperature Cells. Thanks to them, Rosetta is the first space mission to journey beyond the main asteroid belt relying solely on solar cells for power generation. Previous deep-space missions used nuclear RTGs (Radio isotope thermal generators). The new solar cells allow Rosetta to operate over 800 million kilometres from the Sun, where levels of sunlight are only 4% those on Earth” After touchdown, the initial battery lifetime of the lander is expected to be about 64 hours. ..Solar illumination conditions and the amount of dust settling on the lander’s solar panels will determine the length of the long term science phase".

From an online publication written by a NASA Engineer: “Philae must function on a small amount of stored energy upon arrival: 1000 Watt-Hours (equivalent of a 100 watt bulb running for 10 hours). Once that power is drained, it will produce a maximum of 8 watts of electricity from Solar panels to be stored in a 130 Watt-Hour battery [aside: is this balanced??]… Without any assurance that they would land fortuitously and produce more power, the Philae designers provided a high capacity battery that is charged, one time only, by the primary spacecraft solar arrays (64 sq meters) before the descent to the comet. With an initial science command sequence on-board Philae and the battery power stored from Rosetta, Philae will not waste any time to begin analysis — not unlike a forensic analysis — to do a “dissection” of a comet. Thereafter, they utilize the smaller battery which will take at least 16 hours to recharge but will permit Philae to study 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for potentially months".

“The lander could get too cold when the solar arrays stop providing enough energy, because the comet's average surface temperature (now) is -70 °C (Wikipedia)”

The first photo of Philae’s landing has been published (attached) and it doesn’t look so good for insolation. Philae drifted perhaps 2KM from the proposed landing site and is apparently in more rocky shaded terrain. Hope those panels are not in one series.

Anyway, fun morning cwaffee talk.
Attachment not found.