Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

29 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. oh sure by compro01 · · Score: 2, Funny

    As if they don't have enough to worry about, now we /. them!

    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    1. Re:oh sure by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The site was slashdotted well before the story was posted for subscribers... nice try JPL, but you'll have to do more to get through a Memorial Day Weekend slashdotting.

  2. geeky video here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/phoenix/phx20080327/

  3. Buddy's Idea by WED+Fan · · Score: 3, Funny

    A buddy of mine once said it would've been cool to put a little mini-web server on the Spirit rover.

    Latency aside, can you imagine what would have happened if they had done so and someone posted the URL to /.?

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    1. Re:Buddy's Idea by schnikies79 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Alderaan comes to mind.

      --
      Gone!
    2. Re:Buddy's Idea by strstrep · · Score: 3, Informative

      If I remember correctly, Mars is too far away for TCP --- you'll timeout before you can establish the connection. I don't think anybody bothered to implement HTTP over UDP, though there is a port reserved for it.

    3. Re:Buddy's Idea by Kjella · · Score: 4, Funny

      I was thinking a smoldering crateer, but clearly your imagination has a bigger special effects budget.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Buddy's Idea by Spikeles · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here's some light reading for you..
      TCP Extensions for Space Communications
      TCP/IP Router for Space Applications

      --
      I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
  4. no photos, planet not available at this time by spazdor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Way to go guys, we slashdotted Mars!

    --
    DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
    1. Re:no photos, planet not available at this time by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think the interplanetary cable got severed when it got run through the Sun.

  5. I wonder by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is that Imperial hours or metric hours?

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    1. Re:I wonder by Tango42 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, I have no doubt it will land - Newton hasn't failed us yet. I'm just concerned about how many pieces it will be in afterwards...

      (I say that - what do you think the odds are of them missing Mars entirely? That would be pretty impressive, especially at this late stage...)

    2. Re:I wonder by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      (I say that - what do you think the odds are of them missing Mars entirely? That would be pretty impressive, especially at this late stage...) Well from what I've understood you don't want to hit a planet dead on, you actually aim for the edge so you have a long burn "sideways" in the athmosphere to slow you down. There's actually a fairly small approach angle, come in too steep and you'll hit the ground at too high speed, but come in too flat and you'll bounce off the athmosphere and continue out into space again. So it's not quite so unlikely as you might think, not that I have any odds to give you but with a thruster malfunction in early stages of decent it can happen.
      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:I wonder by servognome · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'd assume even if it bounced off it probably wouldn't have the momentum to escape Mars' gravity completely, so it would still land... just later than planned.

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
  6. A better link for full JPL/Phoenix coverage by Mc_Anthony · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hello from JPL...

    Best place to go for coverage including links to NASA TV (live video starts at 3:30pm PDT is... http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/phoenix.

    Wish us luck!

    1. Re:A better link for full JPL/Phoenix coverage by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 4, Funny

      The broadcast feels like a mix between a science lecture and coverage of a sporting event, which is pretty neat. As in sports, I'm cheering on the efforts of supremely talented people to score a goal. Rather than a football in an end zone, it's a lander on the northern plains of Mars. The difference here is that victory will actually mean something for mankind.

      Go Earth! Get those Martians!

    2. Re:A better link for full JPL/Phoenix coverage by mutube · · Score: 2

      Best of luck from Birmingham, UK - staying up late here to watch this one in. Appreciate all the effort put into this and hope you get the good news you deserve!

      --
      Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
    3. Re:A better link for full JPL/Phoenix coverage by Danathar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      yea, and their streaming video pretty much sucks. In a world where braodband has been around for 10 years NASA TV on the Web is Marginal quality on Windows Media only, or crappy low bandwidth with everything else (they don't even use H.264 for quicktime which is a super small bandwidth link).

      Hell, they COULD provide a high-def multicast feed to Internet2 since they peer with it and don't (you would think that researchers and universities would be interested).

      How hard is it to multicast a feed to I2? I could to it with cheap equipment in under a half hour. Scaling? Use Source Specific Multicast.

      Sorry for the rant, but if you have VLC and are connected to I2 watch what is being broadcast via SAP announcements. The Europeans have been multicasting hi-def content (boring legislature sessions) for YEARS yet NASA is clueless.

  7. Thing to note by Auckerman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nasa has pointed out to news agencies that only 5 of the 13 previous landings have been successful. Odds are, as always, this is not going to work. As slow as this science goes, taking several years from start of the project to a result, that a whole lot of pressure. The two most dangerous parts of this trip are the take off and landing. It's "easy" to adjust the craft when it's moving over 10 months in space, here we have a 7 minute fall from 12,000 mph to 5 mph. A LOT can go wrong.

    Here's to hoping we learn something about Mars again. If not, as always, we need to keep trying. If it weren't for these people, things we take for granted in daily life wouldn't exist.

    --

    Burn Hollywood Burn
    1. Re:Thing to note by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nasa has pointed out to news agencies that only 5 of the 13 previous landings have been successful. Odds are, as always, this is not going to work.

      The vast majority of US *landing* attempts have been successful. In fact, only the Mars Polar Lander failed. That's one. And this craft has been heavily tested to avoid the same fate (because its using similar technology as the Polar Lander).

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Thing to note by Grave · · Score: 2, Informative

      That would be 6 of 14 or 6 and 8.

  8. Watch by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Informative

    live

    --
    What?
  9. NASA TV link... by Sensible+Clod · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

    --

    The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
  10. Direct Links to NASA TV by Graftweed · · Score: 4, Informative

    I ran into problems getting the NASA TV streams to work under Firefox in Linux. Here are the direct links if you're in the same boat or don't want to go through javascript infested pages. I only tested the Windows Media one.

    Windows Media

    Real Media

    Quicktime

  11. MUCH Better bandwidth (TV quality streaming) by Danathar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't watch NASA TV from NASA (it sucks).

    This one is at much higher bandwidth.

    http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1368163

  12. Landing successful by the_other_chewey · · Score: 4, Informative

    It just touched down - and survived.

    (Yeah, I know, 15min ago, gimme some lag ;-)

  13. Re:Just landed by th1nk · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, it looks like a feed from the TV department at Best Buy.

  14. Re:Huzzah by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just heard the same on CNN. A "successful land" signal has been received. However, there's still a lot yet that needs to happen, like locks popping off and things unfurling. Cross your fingers.

    Let's see if the prediction that there will be big polygonal "tiles" on the surface holds out (based on orbiter photos). It will look like a giant bathroom tile floor with dust and crap if so...

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  15. Landed almost perfectly flat by the_other_chewey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Phoenix' tilt sensor reports it to be sitting on the surface
    with a tilt of a quarter of a degree!

    This is as close to perfection as it could possibly get.