Say Goodnight, Phoenix

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.

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!

Phoenix Mission’s Last Days

I’ve been following the last days of the Phoenix lander near the Martian north polar cap. It’s continuing to communicate with its controllers each day, even as it runs out of power as Martian winter approaches. Any day could be its last day, particularly as the amount of sunlight Phoenix needs to recharge its batteries diminishes.  Controllers are making the best of the situation by monitoring the weather as it changes — exactly the sort of information about the planet’s climate that is useful to know in the long run. Lately the lander has been operating in temperatures as low as -89C; the high has been around -46 C.

For the time being Phoenix is going to sleep each night and waking each morning to catch a few rays to get the energy to phone home. As winter comes on in full force at the Mars north pole, the conditions will get too severe for the lander’s circuits and machinery. It won’t be long before Phoenix whispers its last goodbye.