NASA Gets Ready for Phoenix to Touchdown on Mars

After nearly 10 months speeding across 422 million miles (679 million km), the Phoenix spacecraft is just days away from plunging into the Martian atmosphere on Sunday to land near the north pole of Mars. Before the spacecraft, named Phoenix, can dig up ice samples to analyze, it must touch down safely, a prospect that is giving flight control teams and scientists a bad case of nerves. Landing is expected at 4:53 p.m. PDT (11:53 p.m. GMT) on Sunday.
US space scientists were to attempt Sunday to land a 420-million-dollar spacecraft near Mars’s frigid north pole, but were concerned that the odds for success were less than 50 percent.

“This is not a trip to Grandma’s house. Putting a spacecraft safely on Mars is hard and risky,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.
Because of the 171 million miles (275 million km) between Mars and Earth during Phoenix’s red planet arrival, it will take signals about 15 to 20 minutes to reach NASA’s control center at JPL once they’re sent.
The probe will work under harsh conditions with temperatures ranging between minus 73 degrees and minus 33 degrees Celsius (minus 99 to minus 27 degrees Fahrenheit).
“We’re working at night, because that’s when the spacecraft is going to land,” Bass told SPACE.com, adding that the entire Phoenix team should now be in place at JPL and at a primary mission control center at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “This will be just an absolutely thrilling experience.”

Should the landing go as planned, ground controllers expect to hear the first signal on Sunday evening local time. But despite biting their nails to the quick, mission controllers are confident the probe can pull off its perilous descent and embark on ground-breaking research in the planet’s northern plains. The weather forecast is good and the spacecraft on target to hit its target landing site.
Phoenix is equipped with a camera and a 2.35-meter (7.7-foot) robotic arm that can dig as deep as one meter to find ice and heat up samples to detect carbon and hydrogen molecules, essential elements of life.
With its two solar panels unfurled, Phoenix is five meters wide and 1.52 meters long (16 feet wide and five feet long). It weighs 350 kilograms (772 pounds), including 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of scientific instruments.

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