Congratulations to the Phoenix landing team for an absolutely best-scenario landing! I tuned in for the landing on NASA TV online. Seeing all the tension and excitement at Mission Control got me positively bouncing in my desk chair. I was just amazed that everything happened exactly how it should. We now have 3 active robots on Mars providing us scientific data. Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine this? Additionally, this was the first propulsion landing since the Viking lander, over 30 years ago.
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"The achievements of Apollo were so bold and our subsequent efforts so timid that the energy of those years seems like a youthful dream." -Buzz Aldrin
43 years ago today, humanity took our first steps on another world, venturing nearly 400,000 kilometers from home and walking on the surface of the…
To stop this obnoxious flashing, just hit the ESC key! It's like gold, but better. It's ice! On Mars!
If there's ice, there is water. If there is water, there cold be life. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure the presence of H2O on Mars is not that surprising. But what are the chances of scooping up…
Every few minutes I get an email from NASA telling me which button they've pressed on the Phoenix Robot, recently landed on Mars. And I'm only slightly exaggerating. OK, I'm exaggerating a lot.
The latest: Phoenix has been commanded to move its arm:
Scientists leading NASA's Phoenix Mars…
This:
Is a picture of Phoenix landing on Mars, taken from above.
One always wonders where the camera operator is during these things....
PASADENA, Calif. -- A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's…
What amazes me more is that they did it on limited budget and got it exactly right.
NASA really should promote the hell out of this, both the rover and lander teams have accomplished their missions, and in the case of the rovers more than that.
It's a remarkable testimony to good engineering that those rovers are still going.
Thanks for the heads-up. I thought that was still a couple of days away. Mad props for the people at NASA and the Phoenix team.
I am amazed that Phoeniz is sitting only a quarter of a degree off level, solars panels and cameras deployed, pictures (b&w) already.
"...both the rover and lander teams have accomplished their missions'"
Nope, the Phoenix team has their probe landed. That was the first part of their mission. The rest is still to come. 90 days from now we'll see if they accomplished it.