Well I guess my bouncing theory wasn’t necessary, the lander planted on the comet first try. Although in my defense, they are trying to “determine” if the landing thruster fired anyway, so even the mission scientists are wondering how it stayed down. Of course, this could be the first part of spinning the fact they did some electrical charge tests on the way down and wanted the bounce possibility available to get the lander away if needed.
No matter what, that comet has got to have a huge charge buildup and those electronics are vulnerable.
Question: cab a charge differential be dissipated by a couple of months of orbiting first, as was done? Or by taking such a long and tortuous route to get there in the first place? I just don’t believe space scientists don’t take this problem into account, no matter what they admit publicly.
Short answer. Yes. It can leak off on a long journey. It is what is happening with a comet, after all. It is just that they have such a large charge from a long journey they have a huge charge to dissipate.
Additional, the approach to 67P was quite a bit slower than the Deep Impact’s approach which was at 22,000 MPH. LOL! That would give it a lot of time for a slow exchange of charges as the craft approached without a catastrophic bolt.