Since waking up from a deep sleep, the Philae comet lander has communicated with Earth, sending its first snapshot from space.
According to BBC News, the lander has set its sights on a comet to land on later this year. For now, it is riding on the back of the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta probe.
Both the lander and the satellite were launched 10 years ago and allowed to drift deep into space before being awoken from an electronic hibernation. In Nov., Philae will attempt to attach itself to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Philae is expected to arrive at the 40km-wide comet in Aug. The lander will then map out its target before firing harpoons to reel itself onto the comet, whose small size should not put up much of a gravitational fight. If successful, Philae will provide the world with never-before-seen data about the life of a comet.
Since the probe was so far from Earth, the 31-month shut down was necessary to preserve energy. Philae's solar panels cannot pick up any rays to use for energy and an oversight on this could have jeopardized the operation.
Now Rosetta and Philae are drifting back towards the sun and more and more systems are being switched back on in a rebooting process that began in Jan. The wakeup process is only a temporary power check, however, and the probe will be shut off again when it is determined that all systems are healthy.
The next major event for Rosetta will be May 21 when it will burn its thrusters for 21 minutes to put it on its trajectory toward Comet 67P. During the summer, the probe will perform another handful of burns to get Philae into orbiting position, which should begin in Early Aug.
Rosetta has released its first images from space and is currently 655 million km from Earth.
