A NASA spacecraft
today sent pictures showing itself in good condition after making the first
successful landing in a polar region of Mars.
The images from NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander also provided a glimpse of
the flat valley floor expected to have water-rich permafrost within reach
of the lander's robotic arm. The landing ends a 422-million-mile journey
from Earth and begins a three-month mission that will use instruments to
taste and sniff the northern polar site's soil and ice.
"We see the lack of rocks that we expected, we see the polygons that we
saw from space, we don't see ice on the surface, but we think we will see
it beneath the surface. It looks great to me," said Peter Smith of the
University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for the Phoenix
mission.
Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m.
Eastern Time) confirmed that the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its
difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. In the
intervening time, those signals crossed the distance from Mars to Earth at
the speed of light. The confirmation ignited cheers by mission team members
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Denver; and the University of Arizona.
As planned, Phoenix stopped transmitting one minute after landing and
focused its limited battery power on opening its solar arrays, and other
critical activities. About two hours after touchdown, it sent more good
news. The first pictures confirmed that the solar arrays needed for the
mission's energy supply had unfolded properly, and masts for the stereo
camera and weather station had swung into vertical position.
"Seeing these images after a successful landing reaffirmed the thorough
work over the past five years by a great team," said Phoenix Project
Manager Barry Goldstein of JPL. A key milestone still ahead is the first
use of the lander's 7.7-foot-long robotic arm, not planned before Tuesday.
"Only five of our planet's 11 previous attempts to land on the Red
Planet have succeeded. In exploring the universe, we accept some risk in
exchange for the potential of great scientific rewards," said Ed Weiler,
NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate,
Washington.
Phoenix carries science instruments to assess whether ice just below
the surface ever thaws and whether some chemical ingredients of life are
preserved in the icy soil. These are key questions in evaluating whether
the environment has ever been favorable for microbial life. Phoenix will
also study other aspects of the soil and atmosphere with instrument
capabilities never before used on Mars. Canada supplied the lander's
weather station.
Transmissions from Phoenix have reported results after a check of
several components and systems on the spacecraft. "Phoenix is an amazing
machine, and it was built and flown by an amazing team. Through the entire
entry, descent and landing phase, it performed flawlessly," said Ed Sedivy,
Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "The
spacecraft stayed in contact with Earth during that critical period, and we
received a lot of data about its health and performance. I'm happy to
report it's in great shape."
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. A few months earlier, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter 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.
The signal confirming that Phoenix had survived touchdown and the
transmission of the first pictures were relayed via Mars Odyssey and
received on Earth at the Goldstone, Calif., antenna station of NASA's Deep
Space Network.
The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with
project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin.
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.
SOURCE NASA
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