One Year Until Phoenix Mars Mission Launch

pipcorona writes "The principal investigator of the Phoenix Mars Lander Mission released an article yesterday describing how the mission is progressing, talking about landing sites and informing the public that they are officially one year away from launch." From the article: "In parallel with the assembly of the spacecraft, our Payload Interoperability Testbed (PIT) in the Tucson Science Operations Center has been integrating engineering models of all the science instruments. Besides validating the integration procedures for the instruments, this facility will be used to verify that all our instruments work as a team-important since they were developed individually. In particular, the digging of soils and delivery of samples to instruments will be thoroughly tested."

Comments

The 'First'

[ModestMotorhead]

I have sent letters to my congresspeople on this very issue. Funding for, support for, and most importantly belief in space travel and the benefit to mankind is of tantamount importance. But, it is greatly important to be the 'first' in this endeavor. In the past, the United States has had its share of 'firsts' and 'not firsts' (re: Soviet Space Program and Yuri Gagarin). This wouyld put American in the lead again with a tremendous milestone and achievement for mankind.