18 thoughts on “Kitteh as Philae”

    1. I *think* that the first bounce happened before the harpoons could fire. Outside design envelope is a design failure, not an engineering failure.
      I mentioned how I hate pyrotechnics (elsewhere?), for precisely this reason. NO second chance. OTOH, for application of power …. league of their own. AIUI the harpoons (I’d use the mountaineer’s term “dead man anchor”) were triggered. But if the lander was already flying back, skew … Worst outcome would have been for one harpoon to fire, line retract, and leave the lander pinned by one leg.
      I hope they acquired enough data to accommodate this range of properties. But they also have to accommodate the Titan ‘creme brule’ , and nickel – iron. Big range.
      Battery countdown. You exercise these scenarios in planning. Several tools that I manage routinely have battery limits (different ones for active probing versus passive recording). You (well, I,) argue these thing for days, but you also keep them OFF the project manager’s workload.
      Some VERY senior people have had to delegate to allow Press time. Every second of the lunchtime (EN_US: breakfast-ish) presentation, I expected one of the team leaders to say “I must go.” And go. Balancing the room that specialists need against the (reasonable) demands of investors to know WTF is happening is … political. Hard work.
      Could you work down a microscope with someone shouting in your ear “Give me an answer!” ?

        1. No, and, in fact, some of your thoughts were too brief and cryptic, such as “Some VERY senior people have had to delegate to allow Press time.” I haven no idea what that means.

          I’d really like to see a larger essay on what you had to say. (seriously)

          1. I suspect that means the senior people had to get someone else to do their jobs for a while, just so they could satisfy the ravening press.

          3. Managing the workload of your juniors is an important part of live operations. They tend to get carried away and work themselves into exhaustion. On the other hand, managing your own work load and the workload of people up the chain of command from you is also important.
            In theory, you’re meant to discuss these sub-system issues in detail with all concerned, but in practice, the programme manager often has enough things on his (occasionally her, but generally his) plate that you need to take an executive decision, do your part of the planning and then submit the recommendation with the reasoning filed off into an appendix. You still need to have the records available, and you need to be prepared to back up your boss when needed (which normally means taking the can when something has gone wrong).
            It’s just part of dealing with rapidly evolving, highly complex events. Sometimes you just have to rely on other members of your team to have done their homework, even though you’re nominally required to supervise and assess all that work before accepting the recommendation. But sometimes things go wrong, and then the wheels come off very fast. I don’t know exactly what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon because the appropriate people are dead, but it plays in the backs of our minds. So now we do take the time to play through those “it can’t happen” scenarios before the event. And if that means delaying the event by hours or days … we do it, and tell the bean counters where to go.
            I suspect that the Rosetta/ Philae team did do a lot of planning of scenarios of not having full illumination on the solar cells, and so have a plan in hand for this event. But of course, the exact scenario couldn’t be predicted in advance, so there’s a certain element of “winging it” as well.
            Anyway – less than 24 hours left on the batteries. Drill bit is turning (as of a couple of hours ago) … analysers warming up. Let’s see what they’re getting out of it.

  8. I am watching the developments about Philae with great interest. Last I heard they are not risking trying to bounce it again to maybe get it upright and in more light.
    Maybe they can try that near the end of its battery life?

    That is a commendable d*ggie! Gooood boy! Here… 🍖

  10. What a gorgeous ginger; the last of our ginger dynasty (the aptly named Jezebel) died last year at the grand age of 22. I love my smart tuxedo kitty but would love a ginger kitten (sigh).

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