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Probe Philae made a historical landing on a comet on Wednesday, but its conditions remained unclear. Scientists said the probe might had bounced while touching down.
"Maybe today we didn't just land once ... we even landed twice, " said the Rosetta mission group in its official twitter account.
Andreas Schuetz, spokesman of German Aerospace Center (DLR), a member of a consortium which led the European Space Agency mission, confirmed to Xinhua by telephone that Philae was indeed sitting on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko now, but its exact location and details of the touchdown remained unclear.
"Scientists are analyzing the data, and we will have an information update tomorrow," he said.
Shortly after being confirmed to land on the comet on Wednesday afternoon, Philae "tweeted," saying "my harpoons did not fire."
The harpoons were intended to be fired into the comet surface at the moment of touchdown in order to lock Philae on the comet which has a weak gravity. Other anchoring measures included ice screws in Philae's three feet that would drill into the comet and a cold gas thruster on the top to push the lander onto the comet surface.
Checks before Philae's departure from its mother ship Rosetta on Wednesday morning found that the thruster could not be activated.
According to ESA, Philae was planned to conduct various experiments during its stay on the comet. A full panoramic view of the landing site, 3D high-resolution images of the surface underneath the lander, analysis data of the composition of the comet's surface materials and samples from a depth of 23cm was expected to be sent back to earth at the primary phase of Philae's science mission.
