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Phoenix Mars Lander To Touch Down In 2 Hours

Posted by kdawson on from the entry-descent-and-landing dept.

AFP has a good summary of the pre-touchdown jitters the Phoenix Mars Lander crew is living through. The spacecraft has been under way for 10 months. If the landing goes according to plan — and only about half of the three dozen such attempts have — mission controllers at the University of Arizona will receive radio signals from the Martian surface at 23:53 GMT. Here's the Mars mission home. You can (in theory) track the lander here, but at the moment the JPL Solar System Simulator is "experiencing technical difficulties."

3 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. let's hope they're not using DOD software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Let's hope the guidance software is better than that used on the missiles they fire in Iraq - those that are always "misfiring" and ripping civilian women and children to pieces.
    To date, 47,000 innocents murdered by these mysteriously "misfiring" rockets. Maybe it's an sprintf buffer overrun or something?

  2. Congrats to everyone involved! by Mortiss · · Score: 0, Troll

    Always great to see that humans can do something other than destroy!

    1. Re:Congrats to everyone involved! by MsGeek · · Score: 0, Troll

      Always great to see that humans can do something other than destroy!

      Seconded. Very well done, JPL! I'm proud of my geeky homeboys.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.