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Mars Phoenix Lander Given The Go

Posted by Zonk on from the to-boldly-go dept.

stlhawkeye writes "The BBC is running an article which indicates that NASA has green-lit Phoenix, the next Mars mission. NASA also has some details on the mission, which is centered around locating water on the red planet. Originally planned as part of the 2001 Mars Surveyor mission, the lander would launch in 2007. Among the more interesting plans for the mission is a new type of camera to photograph the landing site just before touchdown, and a robotic arm to claw through three feet of soil. The lander would touchdown near the polar ice cap. The mission is characterized as the first 'scout' mission for possible manned landing in the future."

3 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. More than just planned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Originally part of the 2001 Mars Surveyor Program, the spacecraft that was built and tested to fly with the Mars Polar Lander mission was stored after the loss of the Surveyor. Renamed Phoenix, the craft is in preparation to finally take flight.

    The damn thing was built and tested. This Phoenix is literally off the shelf.

    I do wonder what elements of this design may have changed if say it had been designed in response to the recent lander successes we have had.

  2. "Possible Manned Landing" by Cr0w+T.+Trollbot · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I would be quite interested to learn more details about this "possible manned landing" mentioned in the article. I would especially like to hear that NASA is putting more time, money, and effort into this than the orbiting white elephant known as the "International Space Station," and that they're working on a replacement vehicle (or even a beanpoll or orbital elevator) to replace the antiquated kludge known as the space shuttle.

    When I was growing up, I expected us to have made a manned landing on Mars by now. I fear that NASA's bureauscoliocis has made that event ever-more unlikely under the current bureaucracy.

    Crow T. Trollbot

  3. Re:If they want to find water on mars... by joncue · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's the southern pole, the northern pole has much higher concentration of water ice. The latest theory on the reason is that the closest thing mars has to a jet stream runs from the south to the north, which evaporates the water ice and re-deposits it on the northern pole.

    Here's the story:

    http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_poles_020320.html