The chances of the Philae lander showing any sign of life are getting slimmer. Even though the Rosetta mission’s orbiter is making regular flybys of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it is still 50 km from the nucleus. Of course, the closer it can get, the better its chances of restoring contact with the lander. On the other hand, as the comet is now hurtling away from the Sun, the lander’s small solar panels are receiving less sunlight and so their ability to generate power is inexorably waning.

The Jason-3 satellite is in good shape since its launch on 17 January. Pointing is nominal and its thrusters have been activated and calibrated. All instruments—DORIS, Poseidon 3B (which has already ‘pinged’ the surface and had its signals successfully processed by the ground segment), AMR and GPSP (JPL), CARMEN-3/AMBRE (CNES) and LPT (JAXA)—have been switched on and are functioning nominally.

Le satellite Jason-3 va bien depuis son lancement le 17 janvier dernier. Il est en pointage nominal. Ses tuyères ont été activées et calibrées. Tous les instruments sont allumés et fonctionnent normalement : DORIS, POS 3B (qui a fait des échos traités par le segment sol immédiatement avec succès), AMR et GPSP (JPL), CARMEN3/AMBRE (CNES) et LPT (JAXA).

The launch of Jason-3 had been postponed following the mishap of the Falcon-9 launcher on 28 June when the programme partners —CNES, NASA, Eumetsat and NOAA— decided to interrupt the launch campaign to leave time for all necessary investigations to return the launcher to flight.

La campagne de lancement de Jason-3 avait été interrompue suite à l’échec du lanceur Falcon-9 survenu le 28 juin 2015.