NASA's Phoenix Lander successfully landed in the northern polar region of Mars on Sunday to begin three months of examining a site chosen for its likelihood of having frozen water within reach of the lander's robotic arm.
Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m Eastern Time) confirmed the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. The signals took that long to travel from Mars to Earth at the speed of light.
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 awaited further information from Phoenix later Sunday night.
This was the first successful Mars landing without airbags since Viking 2 in 1976.
During its 422-million-mile flight from Earth to Mars after launching on Aug. 4, 2007, Phoenix relied on electricity from solar panels during the spacecraft's cruise stage.
The cruise stage was jettisoned seven minutes before the lander, encased in a protective shell, entered the Martian atmosphere. Batteries provide electricity until the lander's own pair of solar arrays spread open.
"We've passed the hardest part and we're breathing again, but we still need to see that Phoenix has opened its solar arrays and begun generating power," said JPL's Barry Goldstein, the Phoenix project manager. If all goes well, engineers will learn the status of the solar arrays between 7 and 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time (10 and 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time) from a Phoenix transmission relayed via NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.
The team will also be watching for the Sunday night transmission to confirm that masts for the stereo camera and the weather station have swung to their vertical positions.
The signal confirming that Phoenix had survived touchdown was relayed via Mars Odyssey and received on Earth at the Goldstone, Calif., antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network.
Phoenix uses hardware from a spacecraft built for a 2001 launch that was canceled in response to the loss of a similar Mars spacecraft during a 1999 landing attempt. Researchers who proposed the Phoenix mission in 2002 saw the unused spacecraft as a resource for pursuing
a new science opportunity. Earlier in 2002, Mars Odyssey 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 has been one of the few successfull missions to Mars after many failures. some of the past successfull missions include Mariner 4 (Flyby) in July 1965, Mariner 6 (Flyby) and Mariner 7 (Flyby) in July and August 1969 respectively, Mariner 9 (Orbiter) in November 1971, Viking 1&2 (Lander and Orbiter) in July and September 1976 respectively, Mars Global Surveyor (Orbiter) and Mars Path Finder (Lander/Orbiter) in September and July 1997 respectively.
Others still operational include 2001 Mars Odyssey (orbiter), Spirit and Opportunity Rovers in 2004 and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2006.
The Dawn Spacecraft (Flyby) is currently on route to Mars after a successfull launch in 2007 and is set to arrive in 2009. its final destination will be Vesta (the second most massive object in the asteroid belt).
Other non US successfull missions include Mars 2 and 3 (Orbiter/Rover) by the Soviet Union in 1971. The Orbiters were successfull but the Rovers Crush Landed.
Mars Express Orbiter in 2003 and Rosetta Flyby in 2oo7 both belong to Europe and are still operational.
The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the
universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix
Check out Timeline of Mars Exploration.
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