To boldly go where no analytical instrument has gone before
Nina Notman meets the chemist behind the mass spectrometer onboard the Philae lander
On 12 November 2014, the Philae lander became the first spacecraft to touchdown on a comet. And although it unexpectedly bounced, landing on its side in a shaded spot – preventing battery recharge by the sun – the analytical instruments onboard successfully collected 80% of the planned initial data before Philae went into hibernation.
Ian Wright is head of the team responsible for Ptolemy, the gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) instrument onboard Philae. ‘We got lucky with the first impact, as the legs on Philae gouged out holes on the surface about 20–30 cm deep and threw up a load of dust which went into the instrument. We got a sample into Ptolemy in a way that we didn't anticipate we were going to, but that's the nature of exploration.’
Ian Wright discusses the findings from Ptolemy, the Philae project and what the next frontier to tackle might be.
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