Phoenix Mars Polar Lander Website Launched

ciph3r writes "The Phoenix Mars Polar Lander mission has just launched their public website. '[The] mission is to land in the northern polar region of Mars (about 70 N latitude) in May 2008 and to expose the upper few feet of surface material using a robotic arm to find the ice that was discovered by the Odyssey mission in 2002. The history of this ice and its interaction with the martian atmosphere will be studied throughout the 3-month primary mission. This ice-rich soil may be one of the few habitable environments on Mars where a biological system can survive.'"

Comments

The Mission Logo

[nxtr]

It looks like they took the Twirl filter to the Firefox logo in Photoshop.

The logo...

[christopherfinke]

Does anyone know why the "o" in the Phoenix logo is the symbol for male? Also, what does the year 2007 have to do with anything?

Re:The logo...

[HarveyTheWonderBug]

The symbol for male happens to be the symbol of Mars. The symbol for Venus is the symbol for female...

Life on Mars - from Earth

[saskboy]

I hope they are taking some precautions to reduce the terestrial contamination of regions of Mars where we expect there is the posibility of sustaining life. Because if we land something where there is frozen water, we could very well seed it with micro-organisms from Earth.

Re:Life on Mars - from Earth

[HermanAB]

I'd like to see the micro-organisms that can survive a year or more in space. The probes are as sterile as they can possibly be, by the time they get there. That big yellow thing up there in the sky is a nuclear reaction...

Re:Life on Mars - from Earth

[saskboy]

" is a nuclear reaction."

OK, but then the organism has a good supply of energy that means. I'm sure if we could design something to operate in space, then so can nature.

Re:Life on Mars - from Earth

[Catmeat]

I'd like to see the micro-organisms that can survive a year or more in space. The probes are as sterile as they can possibly be, by the time they get there. That big yellow thing up there in the sky is a nuclear reaction...

Sorry, but no. In November 1969, Apollo 12 landed with walking distance of the long-dead, unmanned Surveyor 3, which had touchded down three and a half years earlier. One of the objectives of Apollo 12 was to recover parts of the Surveyor to examine the effects of long term exposure to the Lunar surface; this, they did (Surveyor's camera is now in the Air and Space Museum).

Small amounuts of living bacteria (Streptococcus mitis) were found in the camera's foam insulation upon its return to earth. Now this is slightly contentious as it is possible the camera could have been contaminated after its return. But most current scientific opinion is that the bacteria were there all along and survived three years on the Lunar surface.

In the case of a spacecraft on the seven month cruise to Mars, it is certain that the outside would be quite well steralized - solar UV would do that. But remember, the lander spends the trip cocconed inside a nice protective aero-entry shell and heatshield. Anything on the surface of the lander must only endure seven months of hard vacuum and mild temperatures in order to make it to the Martian surface. Many common bacteria would shrug that off.

about time?

[mattthateeguy]

I was wondering when they were going to send (another) spacecraft to Mars. I mean our current one(s) have been there for only 11 months.

Locations of ice?

[hazee]

The European Mars Express probe has a radar boom that was meant to do really accurate measuring of the subsurface ice. This sounds like the sort of knowledge that would be really useful to have in deciding exactly where to aim the Phoenix mission.

But they delayed unfolding the radar boom on Mars Express after some analysis showed that the forces released in springing it open might be enough to mess up the whole spacecraft.

First it was meant to happen in April 2004, then delayed till June I think. After that I can't find any furthur information. Anyone know what the score with that is?

Re:Locations of ice?

[iamlucky13]

I guess they've got 3 more years until they need to have that data if they're going to use it, assuming they can upload final landing data at whenever the last chance is for the lander to determine it's LZ. I have looked at the mission profile, so I don't know if it calls for it to enter orbit, then land, or just come straight in. I imagine the Mars Express team probably wants to get as much other science done as possible before they risk putting it into an uncontrollable spin or whatever the concern is, so I wouldn't be surprised if they delay it further.

As an interesting aside, one of my profs had a story about how one mission (I think it was Mars Global Surveyer), the engineers spent hundreds of hours trying to determine the best way to minimize shock from the spring loaded solar panels hitting their stops when they deployed. They finally decided to do a test to see what would happen if their shock-reducing system failed completely. Nothing. They launched the mission without the system and it worked fine. Much ado about nothing.

Re:Locations of ice?

[lhbtubajon]

It costs too much fuel to slow the spacecraft down sufficiently to allow it enter orbit before landing- it's just not feasible. Phoenix will be entering directly.

Re:Locations of ice?

[lhbtubajon]

Regarding the delay of the Marsis boom deployment on Mars Express- it's delayed indefinitely at this time. The MEX engineers are currently planning to be sure it completes its prime mission before risking the deployment.

Phoenix is rather depending on detailed photos sent back from the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, set to launch in August, for landing site selection.

Was the Scout program rigged from the beginning?

[dolphin558]

This mission bears a striking resemblance to the unsuccessful 1998 Mars Polar Lander. The Scout program is designed to identify and choose the most promising mission ideas. I am assuming that it was coincidence that the winner was a mirror to NASA's very own MPL. I'd like to think there were no other ideas (Mars Glider, etc) that should have won but didn't because this mission resembled NASA's baby.

Another polar lander, eh?

[SeaDour]

Let's hope it doesn't mysteriously disappear like the last one we tried sending.

Camera Control Applet

[s-orbital]

They should add an applet that lets you control the camera on the space craft! Just think of the media exposure NASA would get!

Re:Camera Control Applet

[LucidBeast]

Yeah, there is a guy in Colorado that can help them setup that sort of thing. Maybe control the lights on the landing craft.

Yes it does...

[RKBA]

Yes it does bear a striking resemblence to the 1998 Mars Polar Lander mission. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the Scout isn't just a rebuild of it - hopefully with the landing gear problem fixed. ;-)

I always thought that not reusing the design and development work that went into the 1998 Mars Polar Lander is an example of NASA waste. Just because the landing gear failed to function properly is no reason to discard all the design and development time and effort that people (including myself - I spent about a year writing the firmware for the MET metrological subsystem for the 1998 mission) put into the rest of the project. Design and development is the major cost of spacecraft, and any reasonable person would simple correct the landing gear problem and try again rather than trashing the entire design and starting over from scratch.

-- Ron

Re:Yes it does...

[QuickFox]

Design and development is the major cost of spacecraft,

Why don't they send three nearly identical copies of the same lander (re-using the same design and development effort), and have them land close enough to communicate directly with each other by radio? Then if one lander loses the ability to communicate with the orbiters or with Earth, or even two of them lose it, the third can relay their data. If something goes wrong on a lander, debugging should become far easier if you can still communicate with the broken system.

The scientific instruments could be distributed among them, each carrying roughly a third of the load. This would greatly reduce the size and weight of each lander, which I suppose would simplify the parachute system, the landing system, and many other parts.

Some instruments might be repeated on two landers or on all three, especially some very small and lightweight instruments.

If the landers are small and light enough, all three can travel on the same ship from Earth to Mars.

Mars Scout

[Mukaikubo]

This is part of the Mars Scout Program, which is a really neat idea. Basically, every four years, NASA sends out a request for proposals, that basically says "You've got $N amount of money. Draw up a mission you can do for that price that'll give us some useful science." It's a cheap way of getting specific science results, as opposed to billion-dollar class megaprobes. The Phoenix won because it reused existing hardware, the Mars Polar Lander. Because of that, their mission became cheaper, so they could do more stuff within the price tag. The runner up, a Mars Airplane, is something I'd like to have seen- hopefully they pick it for the 2011 Mars Scout.

Mars Polar Lander Changes Name

[PornMaster]

After being sued by the company which makes the Phoenix BIOS, getting heckled by the Firebird project, and not being able to afford to take out an ad in the New York times proclaiming itself FireFox, has settled upon CowPoop.

Pschedelic

[saltydogdesign]

I think the logo was done by the guy that used to do all the Led Zeppelin album covers.

Re:Was the Scout program rigged from the beginning

[Mukaikubo]

Actually, here's the story. The Mars Polar Lander program produced two articles. One was launched in '98, and crashed. The other was scheduled to be launched in '01, but after the crash was shelved. This Phoenix mission basically stuck new instruments on the old frame, fixed the problem on the old one, and used it. It's a very ingenious solution.

SI UNITS != IMPERIAL UNITS

[Space_Soldier]

NASA, require your scientists to learn the conversions constants between SI and Imperial units unless you want history to repeat again! PS: SI rules!

habitable

[edp927]

This ice-rich soil may be one of the few habitable environments on Mars where a biological system can survive.

Wouldn't it be more fun/interesting to check out the uninhabitable places that life could survive? Or maybe the habitable places it couldn't?

Re:I wonder ???

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Lets get this straight...

I'm not sure whether you personally are advocating this approach, but I have seen plenty of other posts here that do specifically support the idea, and even a few volunteers. To you and all of those others, I ask have you lost your ever loving minds?

You are talking about sacrificing a human life in exchange for a few months of scientific data. Heres a news flash for you, the whole of mars for the rest of its natural existence, and for that matter the whole of the sterile solar planetary system, isn't worth the cost of one human life. If it was a choice between seeing it all turned to rubble and saving a single person, I would not hesitate for a heartbeat to push the button and consign the dust to the solar winds.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

I have plenty of mod points here, but I felt it was more constructive to reply rather than modding this post into oblivion...