The Phoenix Mars Lander
Nov,18
at2:01 pm
byadmin
A new space explorer is waiting in the wings and ready to take center stage: the Mars lander called Phoenix. Phoenix’s assignment is to dig through the Martian soil and ice in the arctic region and use its onboard scientific instruments to analyze the samples it retrieves.
Mars is a cold desert planet with no liquid water on its surface. But in the Martian arctic, water ice lurks just below ground level. Discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 show large amounts of subsurface water ice in the northern arctic plain. The Phoenix lander targets this circumpolar region using a robotic arm to dig through the protective top soil layer to the water ice below and ultimately, to bring both soil and water ice to the lander platform for sophisticated scientific analysis.
The complement of the Phoenix spacecraft and its scientific instruments are ideally suited to uncover clues to the geologic history and biological potential of the Martian arctic. Phoenix will be the first mission to return data from either polar region providing an important contribution to the overall Mars science strategy “Follow the Water” and will be instrumental in achieving the four science goals of NASA’s long-term Mars Exploration Program.
- Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars
- Characterize the Climate of Mars
- Characterize the Geology of Mars
- Prepare for Human Exploration The Phoenix Mission has two bold objectives to support these goals, which are to (1) study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.
Aboard the deck of the Phoenix spacecraft are a suite of science instruments representing some of the most sophisticated and advanced technology ever sent to Mars. The Phoenix Mission inherits a highly capable spacecraft partially built for the Mars Surveyor Program 2001 and important lessons learned from the Mars Polar Lander.
The spacecraft has several subsystems that are being updated, if necessary, with parts and software that will increase reliability. These subsystems include
- command and data handling, controlling the spacecraft’s computer processing
- electrical power, consisting of solar panels, batteries, and associated converting circuits
- telecommunications, ensuring flow of data to and from Earth
- guidance, navigation, and control, assuring the spacecraft arrives safely at Mars
- propulsion, controlling trajectory correction maneuvers during cruise and thrusters during landing
- structure, providing the spacecraft framework and integrity
- mechanisms, enabling the movement of several spacecraft components
- thermal-control, using heat transfer to ensure proper temperature ranges on all parts of the spacecraft.
Launch Vehicle: Delta II
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 17-A
Launch Date: Aug. 3, 2007
Launch Time: 5:35:18 a.m. EDT
The Delta II is designed to boost medium-sized satellites and robotic explorers into space. NASA selected a model 7925 for this mission, which is a three-stage rocket equipped with nine strap-on solid rocket boosters and a 10-foot payload fairing that will protect the spacecraft during launch.
Duration : 0:6:50
This is a little …
This is a little off-topic but…
The moon missions were faked. Google “The Naked Scientists”. In the “New Theories” section of the forum there’s a thread entitled “Did we land on the moon?”. On page 15 there’s a partial summary of hoax evidence. It’s the seventh post from the top.
After the Apollo hoax, we have to wonder about everything else too.
Do a YouTube search on “MarsFaker”.
2:21 is really cool …
2:21 is really cool. It puts things in perspective.
Do I have to kill …
Do I have to kill the bird? RADIATION. lets tell the public there may be life on mars, when quite obviously mars is radioactive because of activity from the sun getting through. yes, there is water on mars, but radiation probably sterilizes all life.
it discovered the …
it discovered the ice and then Mars winter came. They lost contact with it. Scientists are hoping that Phoenix will wake up once the temperature goes up.
what happen to the …
what happen to the robot now? do they leave it on mars or its still working on mars?
No, Phoenix …
No, Phoenix confirmed WATER ice at the North pole of Mars, not dry ice. “On July 31, 2008, NASA announced that Phoenix confirmed the presence of water ice on Mars.” Taken directly from Wikipedia.
cool
cool
ArabPeninsula, Mars …
ArabPeninsula, Mars is habitable by humans in a artificial environment i.e microclimate. Where there is water and the ability to manipulate hydrocarbons, then humans can go and live there. There would be major hurdles to overcome, but given time these hurdles would fall.
cute robot ^-^
cute robot ^-^
I remember that day …
I remember that day really well when Phoenix landed. My boyfriend phoned in sick to his work place, saying he was down with flu! haha, he just wanted to stay home to watch the first pics coming in
Or we could …
Or we could terrorform it, which would be much more easyier, 1. Make facilitys that produce carbon dioxide into the martian atmosphere which will globally warm the planet and we could also use plants to decrease the pressure, i cant remember maybe you should type in ‘The Mars Underground’ it explains it all.
It looks like the …
It looks like the puzzles inherent in the planet Mars is increasing year after year, and are puzzled when a team of scientists are paid to provide a strange assumptions, including that of the planet, it contained the channels and watercourses, and water-rich in the old days through, but soon found that these corridors are the result of earthquakes and meteorites, which often hit the surface of Mars.
i see what your …
i see what your saying, we can’t live there becuase of the atmosphere, but the is ice at the poles but only dry ice because as you said the atmosphere is made up of mainly carbon dioxide (95%)
For example, black …
For example, black spots, the old perception was that the words of the beautiful green meadows covered with grass and trees, but now everything has turned out that this was just imagination and perceptions and that these black spots are only emerged after the black stones that were scraped off the dust by the winds of Mars atmospheric thin so we can not live or breathe is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and there are lakes and seas, but there could be no ice at the poles.
Antarctica has a …
Antarctica has a very similar environment (temperature wise) as mars, people live on Antarctica, as for pressure there is less pressure on mars then there is on earth, The average air pressure at the surface of Mars is 6 millibars (compared to 1013 millibars on Earth) so your quite wrong
LOL
Mars …
LOL
Mars environment is still not suitable for living organisms by both in very different temperatures or under severe pressure, air can not be anyone else intolerable.
The average …
The average temperature on mars is 227k or -46 celsius, the maximum is -5 so it is possible for humans to live on mars, just wear loads of coats :p, and you say no one can live on any other planet other then the earth, you seem to forget that there a billions of stars in our galaxy, with planets orbiting most stars, so that make billions of planets, and there are billions of galaxys so trillions of planets, probably more so what are the chance of Earth being the only planet to have life?
Even if the water …
Even if the water was exist in Mars we can’t live there because the Natural temperature up to -80 degrees Celsius and the maximum temperature of up to -180 degrees Celsius therefore we can’t live there and the reason is the existence of the climate variability.
That’s mean nobody can live there and any planet outside the Earth.
Mars the red plant
Mars the red plant
At ourselfs as a …
At ourselfs as a species, I wounder if we can.
“Sorry, I should …
”
“Sorry, I should have made clear that my comments were a bit ironical. Without emoticons people tend to miss that in these days.
I noticed that too, people are getting stupider let’s just blame the education system & not take responsibility for ourselfs.
Your right though science isn’t the answer to our problems in a thousand years we may still be the violent small minded hunter gatherers we were 10,000 years ago if we want to change our ways we must take a good hard look…
Sorry, I should …
Sorry, I should have made clear that my comments were a bit ironical. Without emoticons people tend to miss that in these days.
I’m not against new challenges, new technological achievements and so on. I’m only sceptical about the often irrational hopes and promises of salvation of all kinds of problems that are mentioned together with these achievements. I’m a pro science and technology guy, actually.
If we all had your …
If we all had your veiw of things the human race would still be confined to Africa hunting with spears if we don’t go into space we won’t grow as a species and eventally a meteor will come slamming into this planet & that’s the end of us.
“It’s a bit like people who think they have to travel to Tibet to find themselves, which I also doubt would help or change anything.”
Umm, no it isn’t I’d say it’s more like humans expanding there presence in the universe.
I’m prety sure that …
I’m prety sure that flying to the stars changes nothing. Not substantially. Colonizing other planets doesn’t make us superhuman/transhuman/non-human.
It’s a bit like people who think they have to travel to Tibet to find themselves, which I also doubt would help or change anything.
For my taste it’s a too optimistic and naive view that’s very much influenced by science fiction stories among other things.
All the worlds …
All the worlds problems will never be fixed not in a thousand years or a million plus my whole point about the private sector was that once the propper infrastructure is in place space industry & commerce will pay for it’s self aswell as any exploreation & research.
“It’s useless if we only create “new earths” while repeating all the mistakes we mare on our own planet.”
We are only human but we’ll never be anything more if we just stay on one crowded planet.