Monthly Archives: November 2008

Mars, Mars Phoenix Lander

Mars Phoenix Has Whispered Its Last Goodbye

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Say Goodnight, Phoenix

NASAs Mars Phoenix Lander (artists conception) before the onset of winter.
NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander (artist's conception) before the onset of winter.

It has been some days since I last got a “tweet” from the Mars Phoenix lander via Twitter. The mission’s Earth-based crew has been waiting word from the lander, too, but in recent days they’ve heard nothing.

Today, Barry “Superman” Goldstein, the Phoenix project manager, Peter  “Mr. Mars Science” Smith (principal investigator), and Doug McCuistion (director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters) confirmed the news we’ve all been dreading to hear: that the lander, which has been running like a champ for the past six months, is now officially “offline” (but possibly not dead, Jim).

It would appear that winter conditions–deepening sub-zero temperatures and declining amounts of sunlight (due to shorter days and higher amounts of dust in the air due to a recent dust storm) for the solar panels–have taken their toll on the mission, causing the lander to go to sleep due to lack of sunlight to power its solar panels any further. The vehicle has achieved all its science goals and then some, according to Goldstein.  “We’re pretty convinced that the vehicle is no longer available for us to use,” he said, “but we’re going to continue listening with Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Odyssey mission. We’ll turn on the radio and try to hail Phoenix and see if it’s alive.”

This is not at all unexpected, although mission scientists had hoped the communications would continue a while longer and that Phoenix would beat the weather odds a while longer. Still, Phoenix functioned really well for six months, significantly beyond its original three-month “warranty period.” For our money, we got a great look at the Mars northern polar region.

Detecting wind speeds and directions on Mars.
Detecting wind speeds and directions on Mars.

Principal investigator Smith pointed out that the mission has discovered amazing things. “The mission is all about water,” he said. “What we’ve got from it will keep us busy figuring out what we’ve got.”

The lander spent six months sending back data about the Mars polar region. Throughout its mission, it has supplied more than 25,000 images of the cracked terrain around the pole and dug into the icy dirt to give us a look at the mineralogy of the soil, just like any good geologist on Earth would do in a study site. In October, it sent back a series of images showing it’s “telltale” instrument blowing in the Martian breezes. Lately, it was showing snowfall as winter approaches, and we even got to see its view of the stars from Mars.

So, while this very successful mission has come to an end, NASA’s Doug McCuistion said that this isn’t so much a mournful occasion as an Irish wake, where everyone should be celebrating the achievements of the mission and looking forward to the next Mars missions. And, he’s right. Phoenix has been an amazingly cool learning experience for the University of Arizona students and scientists who developed and ran the mission. It let them “touch” water on Mars for the first time, handle the alkaline Martian soil, study its ice, and do more measurements of the atmosphere. The next mission, called MAVEN and based at the University of Colorado, will take up the Mars exploration mantle from Phoenix, joining the Mars Exploration Rovers on the Red Planet.

In the spirit of Irish wakes everywhere, I toast the Mars Phoenix Lander and its scientists.  Here’s to you all!  Good job!

magellan mission, venus

Remembering Magellan Fondly

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In a Fulldome Show

Venus as mapped by Magellan
Venus as mapped by Magellan

I just got done watching the Nth render of a fulldome show that we’re producing about the Magellan mission to Venus. It’s called Magellan: Report from Venus, and chronicles the well-known mission that took place in the early 1990s. In fact, Magellan was launched on my birthday in 1989 and mapped the planet using radar techniques until October 11, 1994 (when it was commanded into the thick Venus atmosphere as part of one final atmospheric measurement experiment).

We originally produced the show as a slide-tape presentation because in the early 1990s that was  pretty much the standard for planetariums in visual projection technology. Nowadays, we’ve got these new-fangled fulldome projection systems, and wonder of wonders, we actually had some folks who have fulldome systems who want to see this show come back as a fulldome presentation.

So, we cogitated about it for a while, because most of the images from the mission are rectangular format, which pretty much makes them look like slides. There weren’t any “from the surface” images like you see from other missions (Mars, anybody?), so we decided we’d have to create at least one surface scene to put people in an “exploring Venus” kind of mood.  Mind you, Magellan didn’t land on Venus, it just did a heck of a lot of really interesting radar mapping and atmospheric studies. So, we start out the show on Venus and then take our audience to space, where Magellan spent its time whirling in orbit. The rest of the show is a shower of fantastic radar “images” showing us the wonders of Venus hidden under those clouds.

So, the show is shaping up quite nicely. Mark’s been working hard on some “fulldomey” flybys of the planet, and he’s animated the multi-image appearance of the original slides we used in the show (since we’re trying to be true to the original soundtrack). I think people will be pleased with this “look back” to a very cool mission that showed us some amazing things about Venus and how the processes of volcanism, tectonism (earthquakes, etc.), and impact cratering continue to shape its surface and affect its atmosphere.

This show brings back some other fond memories for me. Not only did we publish it originally in the early 90s, but I also used what I learned about Venus for the show to write an article called Magellan at Venus. I sent that off to a science writing contest sponsored at the time by Hughes Aircraft in conjunction with Griffith Observatory. (Nowadays the contest is still sponsored by Griffith, but in cooperation with Boeing Aircraft.) To my utter surprise and shock, my  article won the Grand Prize in 1992, and forever endeared Griffith to me (and me to Griffith, since 13 years later, I was hired to write their exhibits).

So, it’s with great feelings of admiration I look back on the Magellan mission, gone now for 14 years. I hope that whoever gets our newly fulldomed show about the mission will enjoy the exploration of Venus as much as I did back when I wrote about the mission for the first time in the early 90s.