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 After coming to rest in the shadows when it landed on a comet in
November, Philae woke up in June, delighting scientists from the
European Space Agency, who came up with plans for several
experiments they wanted to run before working up to the most risky
one - drilling into the surface.
But with the 100kg washing-machine size lander having been silent
for over a month now, those plans have been revised.
"The problem is not power, but communications," Aurelie Moussi from
space agency CNES said in a webcast on Thursday. "We have to find
something to do in a shorter duration."
She said the priorities were now to get pictures from the surface
and also to drill into the surface, which Philae was not able to do
when it first landed in November.
 Scientists hope that samples from the surface of the comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will help show how planets and life are
created as the rock and ice that make up comets preserve organic
molecules like a time capsule.
The Rosetta spacecraft, which is orbiting the comet and through
which communications with Philae are relayed to Earth, has spent two
weeks at a different part of the comet. But since Aug. 11, it has
been back in an area where it should be able to communicate with
Philae.
No contact has been established though and the data from the last
communications shows one of the lander's transmitters is broken. Its
two receivers are also not working as they should, Barbara Cozzoni,
Philae operations engineer said.
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The comet on Thursday passed the closest point to the sun on its
orbit, about 185 million kilometers from the sun.
The comet's activity levels have been increasing as it approaches
the sun and it's now shedding up to 1,000 kg of dust and enough
water to fill two bathtubs every second.
When Rosetta first approached the comet last year, the comet was
giving off only about two small glasses of water per second.
Scientists have also observed powerful gas jets, though Cozzoni said
it was unlikely that Philae could be pushed off into space by a jet.
(Reporting by Victoria Bryan and Maria Sheahan; Editing by Tom
Heneghan)
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