In November 2014 the space probe Philae landed successfully on the surface of the comet Tschury. The lander from the German Centre for Air Space Travel had already been en route to the comet 67P/Tschurjumow-Gerassimenko with the space probe Rosetta 10 years before. This means Philae was the first space probe to land gently on a comet. “This is a major step for mankind” says ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain in Darmstadt.
Spectacular landing and exploration of the solar system
After the spectacular landing, the space probe completed its planned research tasks and then, slightly earlier than planned, it went into sleep mode. Nonetheless, the mission was a great success. In the roughly 60 hours that Philea was active for, numerous measurements were taken. The history of the origin of our solar system can be researched using these results. Temperature control technology from Huber Kältemaschinenbau was involved in the development of the space probe. For this, a high-vacuum environmental chamber was built at the Physical Institute at the University of Bern, which required rapidly changing and very low temperatures for the various tests. Unistat temperature control systems were used for temperature control in the tests and components in Philae.
Huber client Hanspeter Eichelberger (formerly Renggli AG) was responsible for the implementation of the environmental chamber. After the successful landing on the comet over ten years later, he is proud of the work he did. “Most of the tests and temperature simulations for the Philae space probe were completed in the environmental chambers at Bern Uni. We were just a small cog in this huge experiment, but I’m still absolutely delighted that it all kept going in outer space – thanks to the power of innovation and the cooling machinery from Huber. I’m proud that we were part of this major project!“