Re: Phoenix landing

Thanks, Phil.

I got this bit of info from a fellow on Cloudy Nights. It gives the desired landing
location.

"NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is scheduled to land on the Martian northern plains
near 68 degrees north latitude, 127 degrees west longitude on May 25, 2008"

Can't wait until 9pm PDT!

Rich

> 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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