Hi Rich
Im not sure of your exact question but the lander will be covered in snow
during the Martian winter and will die. So it only gets a few months to
do its thing.
They pretty much hit the area they were looking for. The orbiters
identified the area as being ice rich near the surface while having the
smoothest terrain. The smooth terrain was important as the thing has no
movement capability once down.
The first data said it had a tilt of 1/4 degree and it was oriented
properly to give the arrays the best sun exposure. (seems to me it would
have been a great place to use an RTG).
There is a briefing at 9pm PDT on the first data pass. The orbiters went
out of view for the radio relay within a couple of minutes of touchdown.
They have to go around again in order to get the data from Phoenix.
The solar arrays were supposed to wait for 20 minutes for the landing dust
to settle before opening so they wont know about that until the data pass.
(actually the data pass should have been 1/2 hour ago).
---------
Phil Chambers [ptchamb-at-svpal.org] (S.F. Bay Area - Calif. USA)
On Sun, 25 May 2008, Rich N wrote:
> Amazing stuff!
> How far did Phoenix land from the pole? From the photos it looks as if it
> isn't sitting on part of the ice cap.
> I've not been following the mission. Are the near the pole that will grow a
> larger
> ice cap while Phoenix is collecting data?
>
> Rich
> --
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-- GSSP Telescope List (Updated 5/24/08): http://tinyurl.com/5ob2th TAC Stats Tracking: http://tinyurl.com/5w795e Mailing list preferences: http://seds.org/mailman/listinfo/sf-bay-tacReceived on Sun May 25 20:06:26 2008
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