Philae, the probe that landed on a comet but stopped doing science when its batteries went dead, could be back up and operating again by next March, European Space Agency scientists say.
A difficult landing involving several bounces before a final touchdown has left the probe in the shadow of the wall of a crater, which blocks most sunlight from reaching the craft's solar panels to recharge its onboard batteries.
There is hope of regaining contact with Philae as Comet 67P comes nearer to the sun and the probe could begin to receive sunlight for longer periods of time, ESA controllers said.
"We expect to have enough energy to boot around March next year," said Philae system engineer and deputy operations manager Michael Maibaum.
If so, ESA scientists said, an attempt may be made to move Philae to a sunnier spot on the comet's surface, if enough power can be restored.
That would allow the probe, which was released from the Rosetta comet orbiter to attach itself to the space rock, to continue is scientific work of drilling ice and rock samples for analysis, they said.
There is some concern over whether Philae may have also suffered some mechanical damage during its bounces toward its eventual resting spot.
Data from onboard instruments, transmitted to Earth before Philae's batteries went dead, show the probe apparently collided with something on the comet's surface, most likely a crater rim.
"We think that Philae probably touched a surface with one leg only -- perhaps grazing a crater rim -- and after that the lander was tumbling," probe team member Hans-Ulrich Auster said in an ESA blog.
The data suggests went through at least three bounces and for landing attempts.
"It was really an exciting and almost unbelievable excursion."
Despite the rough-and-tumble of its arrival on the comet, all of Philae's instruments operated normally for two days until the batteries died, raising hopes that the probe can resume its entire scientific mission if its batteries can be successfully recharged in March, the scientists say.
A challenge in that is the fact that Philae's computing technology is behind today's standards, dating as it does to the probe's 2004 launch to send it on its 4-billion-mile journey.
"The biggest drawback for Philae was the limited computer power and mass memory," said project science manager Ekkehard Kuhrt. "What we could install there (an 800 MHz CPU and a few megabytes of memory) seems to be from another world today."
