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How close was Philae to escape velocity during its first bounce?
ESA indicates that the first bounce lasted two hours and reached a height of 1 km. With the extremely weak surface gravity and low escape velocity of the body (< 1 m/s), and other publicly available information regarding the comet's mass properties and the landing site location, can we estimate how close the lander came to drifting away into space?
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2 Answers
It was never close. Rosetta did not have escape velocity when it ejected Philae. So as long as Philae was ejected in the retrograde direction, Philae would not have escape velocity either. After the bounce, Philae would have even less energy due to landing gear attenuation and would therefore be even farther from escaping than it was pre-bounce.
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The new report says Philae was moving at 38 cm/s.
Using Russell's figure of 0.886 m/s as escape velocity, we have 43% of escape velocity.
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How close was Philae to escape velocity during its first bounce?
ESA indicates that the first bounce lasted two hours and reached a height of 1 km. With the extremely weak surface gravity and low escape velocity of the body (< 1 m/s), and other publicly available information regarding the comet's mass properties and the landing site location, can we estimate how close the lander came to drifting away into space?
10.1k1 gold badge44 silver badges59 bronze badges
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It was never close. Rosetta did not have escape velocity when it ejected Philae. So as long as Philae was ejected in the retrograde direction, Philae would not have escape velocity either. After the bounce, Philae would have even less energy due to landing gear attenuation and would therefore be even farther from escaping than it was pre-bounce.
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