"NASA's, Mars Phoenix Lander Spacecraft, Successfully Lands on Mars."
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 May 26, 2008
There are moments in space exploration when fact and fantasy intertwine. The Mars Phoenix Lander, the latest of NASA's robotic fleet, demonstrated that after touching down in -58 F temperatures (-50 C) near the planet's north pole on May 25 at 7:38 p.m. EST. Television broadcasts relayed jubilant fist-pumps inside the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's mission control room in California along with initial images of the spacecraft's frigid new home. But a couple of blocks from the lab, two young boys riding bicycles had a more fanciful perspective. "The spaceship landed where Frosty lives,"one of them told his friend, "at the North Pole."
NASA should be so lucky as to find a button-nosed snowman in the Martian arctic. A more serious hope is that the $557 million Phoenix will help determine whether organic life is possible on the planet by securing the first sample of Martian ice for testing. Although images of the landing site, a nearly featureless plain marked by polygon-shaped cracks, may not dazzle jaded space buffs, scientists are thrilled. "I know it looks like a parking lot," said principal investigator Peter Smith, "but there's ice under that surface. This is a scientist's dream."
Because of the spacecraft's risk-filled landing, it could have easily been a nightmare - more than half of all Mars missions have ended in failure. Sitting in the mission control room during the final moments of the descent is like riding the bench during a baseball no-hitter: no one wants to jinx the outcome, so no one says a word. "Seven minutes of terror" is how Smith described the communications blackout as the spacecraft passed through the Martian atmosphere. One flight technician fidgeted with his pen. A few others rocked back and forth in their chairs, tension lines webbing their faces. Then came a simple radio burst, indicating Phoenix had reached its destination. Said Michael Wright, who helped design Phoenix's protective heat shield: "Once I heard that ping, everything was okay."
NASA's rover missions did not use rockets to cushion their landings - the spacecraft were protected by giant airbags and bounced their way to a stop on the surface. The Phoenix is the first spacecraft in 32 years to gently settle on Mars, using 12 descent engines reminiscent of techniques pioneered by the Viking probes in the 1970s. NASA says the craft is safely resting on its three pads, tilted by only one-quarter of a degree. "In my dreams it couldn't have gone as perfectly," said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager.
excerpted from TIME.com READ FULL STORY here. |
