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VIRTUALISATION Seven minutes of terror as Phoenix Mars spacecraft attempts historic landing
VIRTUALISATION Seven minutes of terror as Phoenix Mars spacecraft attempts historic landing | Seven minutes of terror as Phoenix Mars spacecraft attempts historic landing |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Sunday, 25 May 2008 | |
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The Mission is the first in NASA’s “Scout Program", where scouts are “designed to be highly innovative and relatively low-cost complements to major missions being planned as part of the agency's Mars Exploration Program”, according to the official Phoenix Mars Mission website. With a phoenix logo slightly reminiscent of the Firefox logo, the lander is the latest attempt to uncover whether life exists – or once existed – on Earth’s planetary neighbour, the red planet of Mars, in the polar ice caps, where if life doesn't exist now, signs it once did might. According to the “mission page” of the Phoenix Mars Mission website, the Phoenix science team will, providing the landing is successful, “co-locate for the first three months of the mission, to operate all the instruments and to perform the first analysis on data that may provide important answers to the following questions: (1) can the Martian arctic support life, (2) what is the history of water at the landing site, and (3) how is the Martian climate affected by polar dynamics?” The mission page explains that to answer these questions, the Phoenix Mars Lander “uses some of the most sophisticated and advanced technology ever sent to Mars. A robust robotic arm built by JPL digs through the soil to the water ice layer underneath, and delivers soil and ice samples to the mission's experiments. On the deck, miniature ovens and a mass spectrometer, built by the University of Arizona and University of Texas-Dallas, will provide chemical analysis of trace matter.” But that’s not all. The mission details state that: “A chemistry lab-in-a-box, assembled by JPL, will characterize the soil and ice chemistry. Imaging systems, designed by the University of Arizona, University of Neuchatel (Switzerland) (providing an atomic force microscope), Max Planck Institute (Germany) and Malin Space Science Systems, will provide an unprecedented view of Mars—spanning 12 powers of 10 in scale. The Canadian Space Agency will deliver a meteorological station, marking the first significant involvement of Canada in a mission to Mars.” A detailed FAQ (frequently asked questions) list explains more about the lander, including its dimensions and weight, how far it has travelled, why the spacecraft is a lander instead of a rover, how fast it is travelling while still in space, how it will communicate with scientists on Earth, how big the Phoenix’s parachute is and more. The “Where is Phoenix” page at the Phoenix Mars Mission website shows computer simulations of where the Phoenix is in relation to Earth and Mars, also showing views from above and below - at least, while it is still in space. How will the Phoenix actually land on Mars? Please read on to page 2. |
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