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05-24-2008, 09:28 PM
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Rep Power: 150 | | | Phoenix to Land on Mars Sunday 4:53PM PDT
The two US robots traversing Mars, Spirit and Opportunity, will be joined by Phoenix, Sunday, 4:53PM Pacific:  http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/20/science/mars533.jpg Quote: US Probe to Make Perilous Landing on Martian Arctic
complete article: http://www.physorg.com/news130861701.html
After traveling 679 million kilometers (422 million miles) through the cosmos, on Sunday the probe will have that amount of time to decelerate from 21,000 kilometers per hour (13,000 miles per hour) to a mere float to manage a safe touchdown on the Red Planet's arctic region.
With the nearly five decades of Mars exploration fraught with failures -- about half of the three-dozen tries has crashed, disappeared or missed the planet altogether -- there is little room for error.
"This is not a trip to grandma's house. Putting a spacecraft safely on Mars is hard and risky," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
Given the long distance, the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, which controls the mission, will have to wait an agonizing 15 minutes for the radio signal confirming the safe landing to reach Earth.
NASA's 420-million-dollar probe will become the first spacecraft to land on the Martian arctic surface, digging into the polar ice in a new three-month mission searching for signs of life on Mars .
Phoenix will enter the top of the Martian atmosphere at around 2331 GMT, use a thermal shield to slow its entry into the atmosphere and then deploy a parachute to reduce its speed.
It will then fire up its thrusters to slow to eight kph (five mph) and land on its three legs on the circumpolar region known as Vastitas Borealis -- akin to northern Canada in Earth's latitude.
"I'm sure as Sunday gets nearer, we'll start to get more and more nervous. We all understand that landing safely on Mars is one of the most challenging parts of our mission," Phoenix Project Scientist Leslie Tamppari said Thursday.
"We do believe that it's a risk worth taking," said Fuk Li, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration program, "because I think that the science the mission will return with will be outstanding and we will open up a new chapter on how we understand Mars to be."
One minute after Phoenix confirms arrival, its radio will go silent for 20 minutes to save its batteries before deploying its two solar antennas.
The first images from Phoenix will reach Earth two hours later.
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05-25-2008, 10:00 AM
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Rep Power: 20 | | | I've got my fingers crossed.
On a side note, I love oriental names.
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05-25-2008, 10:33 AM
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Originally Posted by Gungnir  I've got my fingers crossed.
On a side note, I love oriental names. | Umm what Oriental names? All 3 are name with NON oriental names.
And it has to survive a landing that few of our attempts have survived.
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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
-Bertrand Russell
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable
-Laurence J. Peters
I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.
-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007) |
05-25-2008, 11:31 AM
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Originally Posted by RetiredGySgt Umm what Oriental names? All 3 are name with NON oriental names.
And it has to survive a landing that few of our attempts have survived. | You are right about how perilous Martian landings can be. The Phoenix lander is in part a replacement for a failed north polar mission from a few years ago. So Phoenix is an appropriate name. From the crash of the first polar lander rises the new Phoenix... we hope. |
05-25-2008, 06:33 PM
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Rep Power: 150 | | Phoenix is about 20 minutes from possible landing confirmation. Anyone interested can watch JPL Phoenix Mission Control live at this website: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ |
05-25-2008, 06:58 PM
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Rep Power: 150 | | | "Phoenix has landed. Welcome to the northern plains of Mars!" |
05-25-2008, 07:31 PM
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Originally Posted by onedomino The two US robots traversing Mars, Spirit and Opportunity, will be joined by Phoenix, Sunday, 4:53PM Pacific: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/20/science/mars533.jpg |
It's on the D-SCI channel for those with Time Warner digital cable.
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05-25-2008, 08:07 PM
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Originally Posted by onedomino "Phoenix has landed. Welcome to the northern plains of Mars!" | This is seriously too cool!
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05-25-2008, 09:22 PM
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Rep Power: 57 | | | What?! No Con outrage on wasteful government spending?
Why should taxpayers pay billions, so some probe can look at martian ice???
Where's the outrage? I could have sworn I read about 20 posts in the last week by cons, saying we should gut government spending. Trim it to the bare minimum, only the absolute essentials. |
05-25-2008, 10:09 PM
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Originally Posted by DeadCanDance What?! No Con outrage on wasteful government spending?
Why should taxpayers pay billions, so some probe can look at martian ice???
Where's the outrage? I could have sworn I read about 20 posts in the last week by cons, saying we should gut government spending. Trim it to the bare minimum, only the absolute essentials. | You are a retard, but then we all knew that already.
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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
-Bertrand Russell
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable
-Laurence J. Peters
I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.
-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007) |
05-26-2008, 08:59 AM
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"We are fighting today for our life, for our liberty, for our all, we cannot go on being led as we are. Somehow or other, we must get into the Government men who can match our enemies in fighting spirit, in daring, in resolution and in thirst for victory."~Leo Amery 1940, while staring at Chamberlain |
05-26-2008, 02:28 PM
| | Administrator | | Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Republic of Texas
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Originally Posted by DeadCanDance What?! No Con outrage on wasteful government spending?
Why should taxpayers pay billions, so some probe can look at martian ice???
Where's the outrage? I could have sworn I read about 20 posts in the last week by cons, saying we should gut government spending. Trim it to the bare minimum, only the absolute essentials. | Do you have a point other than to partisan troll?
Cutting government spending would be nice. Whether or not space exploration is worth cost is definitely something worth discussing and/or investigating.
That makes this event no less cool than it is, nor space exploration no less interesting than it is.
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05-26-2008, 03:05 PM
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Rep Power: 150 | | | The 2009 Federal Budget will be about $3.1 trillion. Of that, we'll spend approximately $17 billion on space exploration... 0.55 percent. So for every dollar we spend, we allocate half a penny to space exploration. Humans are an exploring species. We do it because of the psychological imperative, and we do it because it makes economic sense. Maybe Spain should have spent the money it used to finance Magellan on the poor in Barcelona. But Spanish exploration of the World returned the value of investment many thousands of times. So it will be with our exploration of the solar system. We will receive new technology, resources, and ultimately living space. We are going to Mars and beyond. It is only a question of when. |
05-26-2008, 09:55 PM
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Rep Power: 150 | | Phoenix assembly:  Photo: Lockheed Martin
Location of US robots on the surface of Mars:  Photo: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Artist's image of Phoenix at work:  Photo: Corby Waste/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Phoenix landing site up close:  http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/27/science/space/27nasa.600.jpg
An image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Phoenix spacecraft parachuting to Mars on Sunday:  http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/27/science/space/27nasa.2.lg.jpg |
05-27-2008, 09:50 PM
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Originally Posted by onedomino The 2009 Federal Budget will be about $3.1 trillion. Of that, we'll spend approximately $17 billion on space exploration... 0.55 percent. So for every dollar we spend, we allocate half a penny to space exploration. Humans are an exploring species. We do it because of the psychological imperative, and we do it because it makes economic sense. Maybe Spain should have spent the money it used to finance Magellan on the poor in Barcelona. But Spanish exploration of the World returned the value of investment many thousands of times. So it will be with our exploration of the solar system. We will receive new technology, resources, and ultimately living space. We are going to Mars and beyond. It is only a question of when. | That's my point. Conservatives love government spending, as long as it's on things they want: Iraq, Pentagon, Space program. Everyone has their own favorite pet spending programs.
17 Billion is a lot of money. | | Thread Tools | | | | Display Modes |  Linear Mode | 
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