After receiving a faint transmission from the Philae lander currently clinging to Comet 67/P, the European Space Agency (ESA) is patiently waiting for more signs of life.

According to BBC News, Philae sent a radio transmission Sunday that only lasted 85 seconds and Rosetta mission managers have not been able to reach the lander since. The ESA is not concerned, as the conditions for communications have not been ideal since for several months.

Upon landing last Nov., Philae bounced and wound up under a cliff blocking it from gathering any sunlight. The brief transmission is a sign of good fortune, as the ESA's only way to check in on Philae has been by looking for it from above via the Rosetta satellite tailing the comet.

But as the comet moves closer to the sun, there are more potentially hazardous materials floating around that could put Rosetta in danger.

"It's like flying your car in a snowstorm. You don't see anything, and that's quite dangerous," Elsa Montagnon, ESA's Rosetta deputy flight director, told BBC News. "It's the same for Rosetta. Its 'eyes' - its star-trackers, which it uses for autonomous orientation - rely on finding stable star patterns that they can follow.

"And in this very dusty environment, the trackers can mistake dust particles sometimes for stars and that can lead the spacecraft in the wrong direction."

Philae was reportedly able to send about 300 data collections to Earth during its 85-second transmission. Mark McCaughrean, ESA's senior science advisor, told CNN the probe is like a person with bad cell phone reception.

"It works like a mobile phone signal, dropping out and coming back," he said. "But when you're hoping to squirt data down the line, you need it to stay up, or you have to start again and again, many times."