Exploring the Martian Arctic Tundra

There’s another spacecraft landing on Mars in a couple of days. It’s called the Mars Phoenix mission, and if all goes well (and it will be a tricky landing), the lander will settle down onto the Martian surface at a spot in the Martian arctic. After radioing its first greetings from the Red Planet back to mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the lander will start studying the soil in a search for clues to the water history on Mars. If you want to follow along at home, check out the Phoenix site for details about the landing and NASA TV’s coverage schedule. If you happen to be in Tucson, Arizona (home of the Phoenix Mars mission, there will be landing day festivities, including a showing of a Mars show at Flandrau Planetarium that we produced called MarsQuest. There will also be Phoenix festivities around the country. Planetary Society has a list of events here. Check it out in person or online at the Phoenix Lander pages or at CNN’s Mission to Mars pages with Miles O’Brien! Wherever you watch, it’s history in the making.

I noticed that CNN is carrying a story now about the Phoenix Lander, called “Seven Minutes of Terror.” It’s focused on those last 7 minutes as the lander heads to the surface and tries a soft landing without the use of airbags, as some previous missions have done. It IS a stressful time for the mission team, since they won’t know for 20 minutes after the supposed landing time IF the spacecraft did get there safely.

Back when the Mars Polar Lander was supposed to do essentially the same mission as this one, I went out to JPL for the landing day events. The team tracked the signals from the craft all the way in, and then had to wait for the first “post landing” signals from the mission, telling them that all was well. Those 20 minutes were moments frozen in time. People were anxious, concerned, and as the minutes ticked by without a message, fatalistic about what happened to the lander. We never did get a signal, and the team was devastated. They, like others who have lost spacecraft they worked so hard to launch, had to grieve a loss and move on.

From what I’ve read, they’ve done everything they can this time to make sure the lander has a fighting chance to make it to the surface. It’s been built right (not “cheaper”, but better) and the science it will return is absolutely essential to understanding Mars and its long-gone (or hidden) water.

Rock on, Phoenix!!