Various: NASA's Mars Phoenix space probe has survived re-entry through the Martian atmosphere and landed close to the north martian pole. Yesterday, NPR's Joe Palca described what scientists hope to achieve with this mission, before updating NPR's audience this morning with news from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where jubilant mission control staff has gathered to watch the landing yesterday evening.
Unlike the two previous rover missions to Mars, Spirit and Opportunity, which were cushioned when they hit the surface, Phoenix used parachutes and thrusters to control its descent. As Reuters Irene Klotz reports NASA's space sciences chief Ed Weiler said, "I kept thinking, 'I wish Phoenix had airbags.'"
New York Times reporter Kenneth Chang leads with Phoenix transmitting photos back to Earth of the surface. "I know it looks a little like a parking lot,” said the mission’s principal investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, “but it’s a safe place to land.”
“There’s ice under this surface,” Smith said. “It doesn’t look like it. You don’t see ice, but it’s down there.”
As space.com's Andrea Thompson discovers, Phoenix is designed to test the Martian soil and ice for signs that the water was once liquid, to see if it could have created a habitable zone for microbial life at some point in the past. The instruments include a robotic arm that will scoop up dust and ice, as well as a wet chemistry lab and tiny ovens that will analyze the soil to see what compounds might be in it.
"The science team has been waiting patiently... and they are anxious to use their instruments," said Smith. Over the next three months the science teams will collect as much data as possible from the spacecraft says Los Angeles Times staff writer John Johnson Jr.
Mars has been a risky venture for many space agencies, with a high rate of failure. Of the 39 missions to the red planet only a few have reached the surface and sent data back to Earth reports NPR's Virginia Hughes and Alejandra Garcia. The Independent's Steve Curtis looks at the difficulties in designing a probe to land on Mars. Meanwhile, Washington Post writer Marc Kaufman is one of the few reporters to point out the reason for Phoenix's name, the fact the spacecraft was built out of the spare parts of two earlier Mars missions that were canceled. Kaufman's piece has a nice slide show of the spacecraft. The BBC has video of the press conference and touchdown.
Phoenix is also another first for NASA, in that it is the first time that a NASA mission will be run from an operations center at a university, the University of Arizona.
Related Links
NASA Space Probe Approaches the Red Planet NPR
Scientists Excited About Boring Mars Landing Site NPR
Mars Lander Transmits Photos of Arctic Terrain New York Times
Spacecraft Lands Safely at Mars North Pole Reuters
Touchdown! Phoenix Spacecraft Lands on Mars Space.com
Phoenix spacecraft lands on Mars Los Angeles Times
Strife on Mars: Designing a probe to survive the red planet The Independent
Mars Craft Succeeds in Soft Landing Washington Post
Historic pictures sent from Mars BBC
Past Blasts to Mars: A brief history of Mars missions NPR
Phoenix operations center, University of Arizona
Leave a comment