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Mars Phoenix Probe Successfully Launched
necro81 writes "The Mars Phoenix lander, built from the ashes of two earlier Mars missions, successfully launched atop a Delta II rocket from Canaveral this morning. The mission takes the 350-kg lander to northern latitudes (comparable to Greenland or Siberia) to investigate subsurface ice for the chemical precursors of life. The lander should arrive on Mars on May 25, 2008. 'NASA has never attempted to land a spacecraft on Mars at such a high northern latitude. A lander intended for the red planet's South Pole went silent immediately upon arrival in 1999. That failure, combined with the loss of the companion Mars orbiter, prompted NASA to cancel a 2001 lander mission. The parts from that scrapped mission were used for Phoenix, thus its name, which alludes to the mythological bird that rises from its own ashes.'"
If a BIOS company can force a web browser to change its name, then why not a Mars probe?
Here's what happened to the missing Mars Polar Lander: http://youtube.com/watch?v=x_iPvUWyzhE
- Heineken fanboi
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
Puny humans! This one will go silent too! Not only you don't ask for permission to visit, but you also pollute our water supply with useless noisy junk!
This time, not even Tom Cruise will save you!
Eric: "What're quantum mechanics?"
Rincewind: "I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose."
Thank you for explaining what a Phoenix is. I had always assumed it was the name of a web browser.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Included on the lander is a Canadian-built weather station.
Martain Skeptic: "I told you it was just a weather balloon!"
Table-ized A.I.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.