Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 26 May 2008 07:33
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Plagued by previous Mars failures and exploding space shuttles, the
successful landing of the Phoenix Mars Lander today has gone a long way
to restoring some much needed faith in the world’s foremost space
exploration organisation: NASA.
Phew! After a 10 month mission, the Phoenix Mars Lander and its team can finally safely say “Mission Accomplished” – at least, in terms of the landing itself – with the mission to find life or signs of life now underway at last.
The landing in the Martian arctic today means Phoenix can begin three months of examining a site chosen for the likelihood of having frozen water within reach of the lander's robotic arm.
Although the Phoenix control team at NASA had an opportunity some hours ago to make any final course corrections or last minute changes, everything was going so very smoothly that the decision was taken to do absolutely nothing pre the landing itself.
As the Phoenix drew ever closer to the icy surface of the Martian north pole, tensions grew ever higher at Mission Command. When the final landing sequence took place, a tense 15 minute wait had the assembled masses trembling in anticipation over whether history – or a new Martian crater – would be made.
As iTWire colleague William Atkins
noted 6:47 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) saw controllers at JPL report that constant signals from Phoenix had showed it had entered the atmosphere of Mars, and then at 6:52pm EDT came the report that Phoenix was operating nominally, with an altitude of 1,700 meters above the surface of Mars.
In the intervening time, those signals crossed the distance from Mars to Earth at the speed of light.
There were no second chances once descent had begun. As
Reuters reported, “Phoenix was tearing along at 20,400 kmh before it entered the atmosphere, which slowed the craft so it could pop out a parachute and fire thruster rockets to gently float to the ground.”
It was at 6:54pm EDT that touchdown was announced, with a NASA flight controller yelling “It's down, baby, it's down!", while another yelled "Phoenix has landed! Phoenix has landed!".
Mission team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.: Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver; and the University of Arizona, Tucson, cheered confirmation of the landing and eagerly await further information from Phoenix later today, including the first images from the lander which aren’t yet available from the Phoenix Mars Mission website but already have a
place holder in anticipation of their appearance.
NASA's space sciences chief Ed Weiler is quoted by
Reuters saying: "We haven't landed successfully on legs and propulsive rockets in 32 years. When we send humans there, women and men, they're going to be landing on rockets and legs, so it's important to show that we still know how to do this.''
The Phoenix Mars Lander is now under the control of scientists at the University of Arizona, NASA’s partner in the Phoenix project.
What will the lander now do that it has successfully landed? Please read on to page 2.
