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May
13, 2008: NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing
to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to
taste and sniff fistfuls of Martian soil and buried ice. The
lander is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet on Sunday,
May 25th.
Phoenix
will enter the top of the Martian atmosphere at almost 13,000
mph. In seven minutes, the spacecraft must complete a challenging
sequence of events to slow to about 5 mph before its three
legs reach the ground. Confirmation of the landing could come
as early as 7:53 p.m. EDT.
Right:
An artist's concept of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander a moment
before its 2008 touchdown on the arctic plains of Mars. Pulsed
rocket engines control the spacecraft's speed during the final
seconds of descent. [Larger
image]
"This
is not a trip to grandma's house. Putting a spacecraft safely
on Mars is hard and risky," said Ed Weiler, associate
administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "Internationally, fewer than
half of all attempts to land on Mars have succeeded."
Rocks large enough to spoil the landing or prevent opening
of the solar panels present the greatest known risk. However,
images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
(HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, detailed
enough to show individual rocks smaller than the lander, have
helped lessen that risk.
"We
have blanketed nearly the entire landing area with HiRISE
images," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in
St. Louis, chairman of the Phoenix landing-site working group.
"This is one of the least rocky areas on all of Mars
and we are confident that rocks will not detrimentally impact
the ability of Phoenix to land safely."
![see caption](images/phoenix/landingsites_strip.jpg)
Above:
The landing site chosen for NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, at
about 68 degrees north latitude, is much farther north than
the sites where previous spacecraft have landed on Mars. [more]
Earlier in 2002, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter discovered that
plentiful water ice lies just beneath the surface throughout
much of high-latitude Mars. NASA chose the Phoenix proposal
over 24 other proposals to become the first endeavor in the
Mars Scout program of competitively selected missions.
"Phoenix
will land farther north on Mars than any previous mission,"
said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
The solar-powered robotic lander will manipulate a 7.7-foot
arm to scoop up samples of soil and underground ice. Onboard
laboratory instruments will analyze the samples. Cameras and
a Canadian-supplied weather station will supply other information
about the site's environment.
Right:
An artist's concept: Months after landing, Phoenix begins
to shut down operations as winter sets in. Far-northern latitudes
on Mars experience no sunlight during winter, depriving the
solar-powered lander of electricity. Frost covering the region
as the atmosphere cools will eventually bury Phoenix in ice.
"The
Phoenix mission not only studies the northern permafrost region,
but also takes the next step in Mars exploration by determining
whether this frosty region, which may encompass as much as
25 percent of the Martian surface, is habitable," said
Peter Smith, Phoenix principal investigator at the University
of Arizona, Tucson.
One research goal is to assess whether conditions at the site
ever have been favorable for microbial life. The composition
and texture of soil above the ice could give clues to whether
the ice ever melts in response to long-term climate cycles.
Another important question is whether the scooped-up samples
contain carbon-based chemicals that are potential building
blocks and food for life itself.
Stay
tuned to Science@NASA for updates. And good luck, Phoenix!
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Editor: Dr.
Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
more
information |
Phoenix
--mission home page
Credits:
The Phoenix mission is led by Smith with project management
at JPL. The development partnership is with Lockheed
Martin, Denver. International contributions are from
the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel,
Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus,
Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the
Finnish Meteorological Institute.
NASA's
Future: The
Vision for Space Exploration |
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