Phoenix Spacecraft lands on Mars

The U.S. space agency's Phoenix Mars lander sent a signal to Earth Sunday, indicating it reached the surface of the Red Planet, NASA said on its Web site.

Touchdown came shortly before 8 p.m. EDT, the space agency reported.

Phoenix, equipped with retro-rockets to slow its descent, plunged into Mars's atmosphere 78 miles above the surface at 12,750 mph, and then was traveling about 1.7 times the speed of sound when a parachute was deployed about 7.8 miles above the surface.

The Phoenix's heat shield, which had to withstand temperatures of about 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit during entry, was jettisoned about 15 seconds after the chute opened, NASA said.

Preparations were made to arrange for three Mars orbiting satellites to be in the right place on May 25, 2008, to observe Phoenix as it entered the atmosphere and to monitor it up to one minute after landing. This information will allow for better design for future landers.[15] The projected landing area was an ellipse 100 km by 20 km covering terrain which has been informally named "Green Valley"[16] and contains the largest concentration of water ice outside of the poles.

Phoenix entered the Martian atmosphere at nearly 13,000 miles per hour, and within 7 minutes had to be able to decrease its speed to 5 miles an hour before touching down on the surface. Confirmation of atmospheric entry was received at 4:46 pm PDT (23:46 UTC). Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. PDT confirmed that Phoenix had survived its difficult descent and landed 15 minutes earlier, thus completing a 422 million mile flight from Earth. Radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, took a little over 15 minutes to reach Earth from Mars at the time of Phoenix's landing. The light travel time varies as Earth and Mars change their relative positions during their respective solar orbits. The landing was made on a flat surface, with the lander reporting only 0.25 degree of tilt. Just prior to landing, the craft performed a successful reorientation using its thrusters to allow the solar panels to deploy along an east-west axis to maximize power generation.

Only five of 13 previous attempted Mars landings were successful.

The first images from the Phoenix Lander:

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Phoenix Mission to land on Mars (May 25)

Phoenix is scheduled to touch down on the northern icy plains of Mars on May 25. NASA TV will cover landing events. Confirmation of the landing could come as early as 7:53 p.m. EDT (4:53 p.m. PDT).

After a journey of 10-months and more than 400 million miles, Phoenix arrives at the Red Planet just before 8 p.m. EDT this Sunday, beginning its study of water and possible conditions for life in the Martian arctic.

Phoenix Mission:
Phoenix is a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission to Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The scientists conducting the mission will use instruments aboard the Phoenix lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there. Phoenix launched successfully on August 4, 2007, and is scheduled to land on Mars on May 25, 2008. The multi-agency program is headed by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, under the direction of NASA. The program is a partnership of universities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the aerospace industry. Phoenix is planned to land in the planet's water-ice-rich northern polar region and, if this is successful, will use its robotic arm to dig into the Arctic terrain

Launch
Phoenix launched on 4 August 2007, at 5:26:34 am EDT (09:26:34 UTC) on a Delta 7925 launch vehicle from Pad 17-A of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch was nominal with no significant anomalies. Mars Phoenix Lander was placed on a trajectory of such precision that its first trajectory course correction burn, performed on 10 August 2007 at 7:30 am EDT (11:30 UTC), was only 18 m/s. The launch took place during a launch window extending from 3 August to 24 August 2007. Due to the small launch window the rescheduled launch of the Dawn mission (originally planned for 7 July) had to stand down and was launched after Phoenix in September. The Delta 7925 was chosen due to its successful launch history, which includes launches of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers in 2003 and Mars Pathfinder in 1996.

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