Scientists have re-established communication with the Philae space probe, which made history by landing on a comet.

The lander was described as “stable” despite concerns after a harpoon, which was meant to tether it to the surface of the 4km-wide comet, failed to deploy.

Rosetta project scientist Dr Matt Taylor said the European Space Agency was receiving a good signal and receiving science data.

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“Now we are busy analysing what it all means and really trying to find out where the lander actually is on the surface,” he said.

Philae touched down after a 10-year, 6.4 billion kilometre journey through space in an achievement hailed as one of the greatest in science.

Scientists hope the probe will yield insights into the origins of our Solar System.

Philae landed in a soft area on the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet and dipped around 4cm before bouncing back up when its harpoon failed to fire.

It went straight back up for two hours and drifted out into space before descending to the surface. It bounced again for a few minutes before settling in what Taylor described as “three landings for the price of one”.

“The descent was due on to a particular point on the surface of the comet. The bounce would have made it go up and then the comet’s rotating underneath,” the British scientist said.

“So we know, if we are looking at an image, that most likely the lander is somewhere on the right and now we are trying to refine that to really start focusing on the orbiter images to see where it is.

“In the next few hours we hope to be piecing the data we get on the lander to add this all together.”