I'm collecting in this thread useful background resources to the Philae landing coming up on November 12. Please reply to this thread with any suggestions for additions that I should make to this list. Thanks to Doug for getting this list started.

Official sites for news/updates

• ESA Rosetta blog - ESA Rosetta on Twitter - ESA Operations on Twitter - Rosetta CONSERT on Twitter - Rosetta MIDAS on Twitter - Rosetta Plasma team on Twitter
• DLR Philae blog (appears to be inactive) - Philae on Twitter - Philae ROMAP on Twitter - Philae Ptolemy on Twitter - Philae SD2 on Twitter - Philae MUPUS on Twitter - Philae COSAC on Twitter
• DLR Virtual Control Room: Philae telemetry

Philae Overviews

• Preparing for landing on a comet - the Rosetta lander Philae - abstract by Biele et al, presented to 2013 LPSC
• What to expect when the lander meets 67P - from the Rosetta blog
• Lander instruments - ESA website

Landing Timelines

• Call for media to attend landing event in Darmstadt (includes timeline of major events)
• Landing sequence (as of 23 September 2014, posted by Olivier de Goursac here)
• Visual timeline (credit: ESA)
  Click to view attachment

How the landing works

• Simulation of the Landing of Rosetta Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, presentation by M. Hilchenbach to Simpack User Meeting 2004
• Analysis, Test and Simulation of Landing System Touchdown Dynamics, poster by Witte et al presented to 10th International Planetary Probe Workshop, 2013
• Philae descent trajectory computation and landing site selection on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, conference paper presented by Canalias et al. to the International Symposium on Space Flight Dynamics, 2013

DLR Virtual Control Room: Philae telemetry - temperatures and current readouts from twelve sensors on the lander. Updated not always quite live, but almost, from DLR MUSC's Lander Control Center. Also contains a timetable overview of the commissioning/pre-landing instrument tests at the bottom of page which have been useful in planning when to look for the more interesting updates on the Rosetta blog

(existance of this originally only published throught DLR's DLR_next youth outreach site, hence why it went pretty unnoticed)

Thanks for that, katodomo! I've added it.

Also just added a bunch of Twitter handles to the list. There are a lot of Rosetta and Philae instruments with their own Twitter identities.

Also from Katodomo on a different thread (thanks!):

"24-hour live coverage from 1900 GMT on Nov 11 to 1900 GMT on Nov 12 planned, to be streamed over web and broadcast over Eutelsat. From three locations, ESOC Mission Control in Darmstadt, LCC (Lander Control Center) in Cologne and SONC in Toulouse. Highlights after each step will also be edited as downloadable content for other media to use.

Overview see http://www.esa.int/esatv/Television "

Another detailed timeline of landing events including DSN and ESA communication coverage. http://download.esa.int/esoc/shares/1/esa_...imeline_web.pdf

The information posted here is great, but I'm not clear if the http://www.esa.int/esatv/Television link is the one that will actually carry live internet TV Nov 11-12 (like NASA TV), or just the program listing and where download videos after the fact? Sorry to be so dense. I just want to make sure I have the link for the web streaming site. Edit: Thanks Dan

It seems that this will be the link for the actual live web stream: http://new.livestream.com/ESA/cometlanding

The landing sequence was updated today for your perusal : it integrates the latest modifications that were given to us by CNES for release.
Please note that the landing time may vary +/- 15 mn around the expected time and that the schedule of events also once on 67P, depends on many technical factors (state of the s/c at landing, state of batteries, etc, etc...)
Here is the link : http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&id=34219
Enjoy

On the word “useful” in the title of this thread:

Even before the Rosetta wake-up event I was already thinking: how can I make a useful contribution to UMSF given my close proximity to ESTEC, Darmstadt. Even CNES is within reach for me. Bear in mind, in those early day’s Emily did not even hint at attending the landing event.

I met Fred Jansen, Matt Taylor at a mini-symposium, contacted ESA PR and yes!!! – I’m going to attend tomorrow’s parallel media event at ESTEC.

In the meantime:
- ESA has expanded its public outreach way beyond my wildest expectations
- VikingMars is attending the landing event at the Cité des Sciences in Paris
- BBC, Nature, Spaceflightnow, and many, many more authorative news sources are providing near enough blanket-coverage
- the ESA livestream is starting up any minute from now
- and really, really useful: Emily is in Darmstadt the whole week!

So what is there left to do for me that is even remotely “useful” for fellow-UMSF members??
I guess tomorrow the usual outstanding signal-to-noise ratio will be temporary shifted towards noise. I for one hope to shout LANDING! In the meantime I’ll take a big bag of peanuts to the gathering at ESTEC to share with real journalists.

Go Philea!

Above telemetry link has been modified to now display only current readouts, no longer temperatures; also diagram timelines there are now split into preparation, separation, descent, touchdown.

...not only attending, but also Co-Organizer of the event in Paris with CNES and ESA : the only other official one organized with Press and VIPs outside ESOC ar Darmstadt and it's great to know that you will be there ! Thanks a lot Harder for your nice support, much appreciated. It's already a great comfort for us knowing that you are a good relay to people about great projects such as the Philae landing on 67P Here below are some pics of the rehearsal with CNES taken a few hours ago at Cite des Sciences in Paris : hope for the best tomorrow !
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment
...and, on Nov. 12, minutes before the landing session starts at 15:00 CET, four members were there gathering as ambassadors of TPS/UMSF in Paris. From left to right : "Polaris", "Vikingmars", Jacques Blamont (Advisory Council of The Planetary Society) and "Climber". We were all proud being there ! We had also the President of the French Republic sitting at the front row in front of us. He told us that he had some fun looking at the "3D images" and "CIVA-P" presentations I made with "Malmer"...
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Can't download it from here, I hope to be able before the landing!
Rosetta Lander Landing Gear Requirement Specification - ftp://ftp.estec.esa.nl/pub2/sci-spd/roset...irementSpec.doc (cached)

THE ROSETTA LANDER ANCHORING SYSTEM
(Details of the harpoons, but not of the foot screws)

(MOD NOTE: Moved several posts, please only list links to useful documents or information in this thread.)