Philae Landing Test at the Landing and Mobility Test Facility (LAMA)
Silvio Schröder, Jens Biele, Joachim Block, Stephan Ulamec, Lars Witte · elib (German Aerospace Center) · 2013
In the recent decades the number of spacecraft visiting asteroids and comets has risen.But only a few of them entered into an orbit of these small bodies and even only two had physical contact to the surface.The ESA mission Rosetta is on the way to meet the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in May 2014.Once in orbit the spacecraft will release the small lander Philae which is supposed to land softly on the cometary surface, anchor itself to the ground with harpoons and perform its scientific observations.This will be the first time in history a lander will touch down on a comet nucleus.The greatest challenges of the landing manoeuver are the unknown surface properties and the fact that the original target, comet 46P/Wirtanen, had to be re-designated into a much larger target with higher mass.Especially the second fact is a critical point, because the higher mass of the comet leads to a higher landing velocity and therefore a higher kinetic energy which has to be absorbed.This effect could not be compensated by a design change, because it was too late to change the design significantly, since the lander was ready at launch site at that time.For this reason a new test campaign in 2012/2013, led by a consortium of DLR Institutes and the Max-Planck-Institute of Solar System Research, has been set up at DLR's Landing & Mobility Test Facility (LAMA) where further touchdown conditions could be tested which have been out of capability of the pendulum test facility used for the original qualification of Philae.This paper gives an overview of the performed work and introduces the test facility concepts with its operation modes.The paper also presents and discusses the preliminary results from this recent campaign and gives an outlook to its further use in the upcoming landing preparations.