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Posted by: tedstryk Jan 24 2006, 06:05 PM

I have been wondering about something....given the performance of the MERs, if one or both survive this winter, is it not conceivable that they could be operational when Phoenix lands? It would, I believe, be the first landing on anything but the moon with other landers (other than parts of the same mission) still operational.

Posted by: akuo Jan 24 2006, 06:12 PM

Um, Viking?

Well ok, they are the same mission. It would speak a lot about the longevity of MERs.

Posted by: djellison Jan 24 2006, 08:53 PM

I think there's some potential for functional, if not 'mobile' Rovers come '07. I certianly think they'll last thru to MRO's science orbit, and as such could do simultanious observations out and into the atmosphere.

But that's a long way away, and a hell of a lot could go wrong between then and now, I wouldnt put money on it, but I wouldnt be suprised.

Doug

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 24 2006, 09:39 PM

If we are going to go the same mission route, Opportunity would be from the same mission as Spirit as well. But I was thinking about not-twin missions.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Jan 24 2006, 10:09 PM

Well, you know, we're within two months of having four working and scientifically productive (and non-redundant) Mars orbiters simultaneously. I think that's quite impressive enough.

Posted by: hendric Jan 24 2006, 10:28 PM

This raised an interesting question: What's the success rate of twin missions vs one-shot?

Viking 1/2
Pioneer 10/11
Voyager 1/2
MER A/B
Mariner 1/2 (1 was destroyed during liftoff, so doesn't count)
Mariner 3/4/5 (3 was a shroud failure, so doesn't count)
Mariner 6/7

It's an interesting comparison, anyways.

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 24 2006, 11:33 PM

Don't forget that Mariner 8/9 fit the same pattern, as Mariner 8 was a launch failure.

Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 26 2006, 06:44 AM

If still alive, I wonder if one of the rovers could see the entry fireball of Phoenix. It would be a great way of calibrating the images of possible meteors seen by the MERs.

Posted by: djellison Jan 26 2006, 10:13 AM

I doubt it - Phoenix's landing site is going to be a long long way from the rovers. It'd be like trying to see the Stardust re-entry from Cuba.

Doug

Posted by: helvick Jan 26 2006, 01:17 PM

Yep - if we assume that the potentially visible entry stage begins at around 120km altitude it will only be visible within a zone that spans at most +-15deg from the re-entry track. Since Phoenix is going to land at ~70deg N any martian surface observer would have to be norrth of around 55deg to have any chance of seing it.

I think that even if you adjust for obliquity and the fact that it's approaching mid summer at landing time the lowest latitude you could possible see anything from would be ~32 deg N in the very unlikely event that the initial atmospheric entry happens at local midnight. I might be wrong in my assumptions on this one but I suspect that if even if I am the reality would be even less favourable.

Posted by: djellison Jan 26 2006, 01:30 PM

Remember - Mars is much smaller than earth, so the horizon is much closer as well, if the exact path of Stardust were replicated on Earth, those lines showing visibility at specific elevations would be much much closer to the entry track

Doug

Posted by: helvick Jan 26 2006, 01:53 PM

Doug - I based those numbers on calculating horizon distances with a Martian radius (3397km), 1deg ~ 59km.

The 120km altitude is just a pure guess - I'm assuming that "entry" starts somewhere around there but I don't know for sure where it would actually happen.

Posted by: djellison Jan 26 2006, 02:04 PM

Can't remember off hand, but on the EDL live coverage, Wayne Lee mentions that atmospheric entry occured fairly high, but deceleration didnt occur for about another minute or so, and I'd only expect to be able to see a plasma trail etc after deceleration starts to occur. perhaps 75km?

Looking at this
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/mpam_0001/edl_ddr/edl_ddr.tab
and this
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/mpam_0001/edl_erdr/r_eacc_s.tab

The peak decel was at 30 - 40km

Doug

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Jan 26 2006, 11:11 PM

In this connection, Pioneer 12's imaging photopolarimeter was actually used to try and photograph the firing of Magellan's orbital insertion motor, but saw nothing. A pity.

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Jan 26 2006, 11:31 PM

IIRC, wasn't there also an effort by HST to image the Galileo Probe entry? I also remember (dimly) some talk about doing the same thing for the orbital insertion burns of MGS and/or MCO.

Posted by: tty Jan 26 2006, 11:46 PM

Since there might be up to four functioning orbiters around Mars when Phoenix lands it seems that there would be a good chance that one or more of them might have the landing site in view. A plasma trail should be fairly easy to see particularly at night. The location should be known within a few tens of kilometers and the time to within a second or two.

tty

Posted by: Deimos Mar 2 2006, 02:26 AM

It will be very difficult to see at night, mostly because Phoenix will be landing in the afternoon . But there should be better than a good chance an orbiter will have line of sight to Phoenix during EDL, since that is a requirement. However, I don't know whether imaging is consistent with the required UHF listening (that may depend on which orbiter).

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 2 2006, 03:39 AM

I hope Phoenix lands in the daytime; I could quit working on MARDI/PHX if it doesn't.

We tried imaging the entries of both MERs using the MOC WA, and didn't see anything definitive.

Posted by: 3488 Jun 8 2007, 06:45 PM

Mars Phoenix Lander will land during daylight, late afternoon.

The potential landing sites are all north of the Martian Arctic Circle.

Mid Summer Solstice on Mars will be on 24th June 2008, just three days after that on Earth (a strange co-incidence).

Mars Phoenix Lander hopefully will take time lapse images of the Martian Midnight Sun!!!

Andrew Brown.

Posted by: nprev Jun 9 2007, 03:02 AM

Well, since this thread got resurrected however briefly, thought it might be fun to see Doug's prophetic words from a year and a half ago...let the good times roll!!!

Posted by: edstrick Jun 9 2007, 09:15 AM

regarding imaging of Phoenix's entry... Most cameras in orbit at mars are not framing type imaging sensors. The experimental navigation cam on MRO is, and the little engineering cam on Mars Express that imaged Beagle as it separated, but that's about it.

Posted by: djellison Jun 9 2007, 10:22 AM

Doesn't stop you doing a nodding-spacecraft manouver to try and grab one with a push broom (i.e. MOC WA for MER etc) - I wonder if CTX could have a go this time around...spacecraft geometry is probably the limiting factor.

Doug

Posted by: climber Jul 13 2007, 07:31 PM

Emily confirms that there's a microphone attached with Mardi. I wonder if it can be used once on the ground even if Mardi itself will be of no use?

BTW, the landing day, May 25th 2008 is NOT a Mardi, it's a Dimanche instead

Posted by: mcaplinger Jul 13 2007, 09:25 PM

There's a picture of the microphone at http://www.msss.com/phoenix/mardi/index.html so I don't think it was a big secret.

MARDI can take perfectly good images of the surface from the height of the landing legs (and I think this might even be an area that the SSI and RAC can't see) and the microphone would work post-landing, but there are no plans to operate MARDI then. Recall that the PHX mission has a limited duration and the other instruments use up most if not all of its lifetime.

Posted by: lyford Jul 13 2007, 10:04 PM

Would this return any interesting data in terms of the exhaust pattern from the engines? IIRC there was some question about the extent the soil disturbance from landing...

And nice picture!*


*Swiss Army Knife not included.

Posted by: elakdawalla Jul 13 2007, 11:25 PM

Nope, it certainly wasn't a secret; in fact most of my information came from the mission press kit, which was posted on Monday.

Cool that MARDI could be used to take a photo of what's under the lander! I'm not sure what value that would have -- but it would be cool.

--Emily

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 13 2007, 11:55 PM

No, but the apparent engineering collaboration between MSSS and the Swiss Army is certainly news.

Posted by: Gsnorgathon Jul 14 2007, 04:58 AM

Well, it might make polar-projected images of the landing site a bit more complete - no more black hole right in the middle!

Posted by: climber Jul 14 2007, 02:03 PM

Thanks for the answers all, but my question was about the use of the microphone once on the ground. Any infos ?

Posted by: mcaplinger Jul 14 2007, 02:59 PM

I answered that: it would work but there are no plans to operate MARDI post-landing.

Posted by: climber Jul 14 2007, 04:22 PM

Got the point this time Mike! I thought image & sound could have been kind of independant. Thanks

Posted by: ustrax Sep 7 2007, 01:56 PM

From today's http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMG4VE1P5F_index_0.html, sounds great to me...:

"Operations experts at ESA are currently studying ways to use Mars Express to communicate with the Phoenix lander during its 90-day mission. This could increase the amount of scientific data returned by the lander, as Mars Express would have the capacity to contact and command the lander every two or three days, as well as serve as a relay station for commands and back-up in case of NASA spacecraft failures. Mars Express could also record data if Phoenix goes in safe mode."

Posted by: djellison Sep 7 2007, 03:30 PM

About time We should have been doing UHF relay for MER as a 'payback' for borrowing the DSN so much

Doug

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Sep 7 2007, 05:44 PM

What do you mean by "borrowing"? You mean for free? I didn't realize ESA didn't pay (or barter) for time on the DSN.

Posted by: ustrax Oct 26 2007, 04:51 PM

Here's a http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2007/10/ive-just-received-some-notes-from.html for the weekend for all of you detail-fans...

Looks like the stage is ready...

Posted by: nprev Oct 26 2007, 11:08 PM

Freakin' awesome...thanks, Rui!

Man...the level of detail, the simulations, the constant discovery of disconnects & bugs...it is always so impressive to see the dedication and foresight of these people who dare to send robots to explore the planets!!!

Posted by: ustrax Oct 29 2007, 10:28 AM

You're welcome nprev...

Did you see the size of the trench?! That baby will REALLY dig!!

Posted by: nprev Oct 29 2007, 11:14 AM

Ohh, yeah...more power, more power!!! (grunt, grunt) Hopefully we'll see the glimmer of ice down there...

Posted by: centsworth_II Oct 29 2007, 06:51 PM

As I understand, during landing site selection, there was a concern of
seeing too much ice and not enough soil to do mineralogy/chemistry on.
Seeing ice should be a given, but I guess planners have been surprised
before with respect to actual vs. predicted landing site conditions. As
always it will be exciting waitng for those first images of the landing site,
and then the first -- and subsequent -- images from inside the trench.

Posted by: ustrax Apr 1 2008, 09:01 AM

Stu, our intrepid reporter http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2008/04/phoenix-special-interview-with-mark.html from Mark Lemmon among which are how things will develop on landing day and what we can expect in the first days regarding images...

Posted by: Stu Apr 1 2008, 12:04 PM

I'm always amazed and grateful when these guys take the time to reply to emails, especially when they answer so fully. There are some really interesting news bits in there, made me even more excited about Phoenix...

Posted by: nprev Apr 1 2008, 12:42 PM

An absolutely terrific article, Stu; outstanding work!!!

A must-read for Marsophiles--now I know exactly what to expect on Landing Day.

Posted by: Stu Apr 1 2008, 05:19 PM

Glad you enjoyed it, I was v v v chuffed that Mark was so forthcoming. I can start planning that weekend now! Thankfully, the Phoenix landing coincides with my weekend off work, so I can camp by my computer and follow the whole thing as it happens... if I've got my time conversions right then Phoenix should land at around 11pm on the 25th my time, the first picture should be released within an hour, taking me to midnight, and any JPL Press Conference, with pictures to show, should be about 5am Sunday morning BST (Bleary-eyed Stu Time )

Good to hear that there'll be a raw images site, and great to hear that they'll - hopefully - be accepting image contributions from people "out here"...

I am getting quite fidgety now to see what Phoenix's surroundings will be after landing, aren't you..?

Posted by: ustrax Apr 1 2008, 07:23 PM

Why do these guys always plan this events to hours where one must be dreaming of Mars?...
Dear Stu, your work was truly helpful on letting us all know how things will run within...less than 9 weeks now?...Already?!

Posted by: dvandorn Apr 2 2008, 03:22 AM

Well -- someone correct me if I'm wrong, but 11pm in the UK is 7pm in New York, 6pm in Minneapolis (my locale), and most important, 4pm in Pasadena. So the guys in charge of EDL get to work it in the middle of the afternoon, their time.

Of course, the first pictures will come down "after hours" for any American location. But not so late as to be interrupting anyone's beauty sleep...

Besides, if you want to land at a given place, with a given sun angle, after a launch on a given day, you don't have many choices in terms of planning. The landing will happen at a specific time, and it's moot whether or not that's a convenient time for the engineers, scientists, or even us fascinated spectators... (Talk to me sometime about the times in my early and mid teens I would sit up all night watching lunar landings and moonwalks. Apollo 14 happened in a dark world in my memory, because most all of the lunar activities happened when it was dark in the central U.S.)

-the other Doug

Posted by: ustrax Apr 2 2008, 04:02 PM

Doug, you took my expression too literally...I was referring more to that 5am press conference, which by the way Stu...isn't it on Monday morning, working day already?...

Posted by: centsworth_II Apr 2 2008, 04:17 PM

Don't tell me I'm the only one that plans vacation days
from work around significant space exploration events.

Great interview by Stu on your blog, ustrax. I think I'll
let the folks over at the space.com Phoenix thread know about it.

Posted by: ustrax Apr 2 2008, 04:40 PM

I think I'll arrive the office sooner than usual...
If it were a month earlier it would be the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution...

Yes, Stu made a splendid job! ustrax just loves his crewmates...

And don't forget to participate in the competition!

Posted by: jamescanvin Apr 2 2008, 07:13 PM

I'm probably going to take the Monday off, I wouldn't get any work done even if I did go in.

Posted by: djellison Apr 2 2008, 07:22 PM

It's the Spring Bank Holiday Monday James WIN

Doug

Posted by: Stu Apr 2 2008, 09:03 PM

It would be if it was the previous or following Monday, but because of my bizarre work rotas this Monday falls on my beloved "3 day weekend"... To quote a quaint old English phrase, GET IN THERE!!!

Posted by: SpaceListener Apr 9 2008, 07:21 PM

Now it is 45 days away from landing on Mars. As the Phoenix spacecraft will be approaching to Mars at the 120,000 km/h and Mars would be traveling around 96,600 km/h and the diferencial speed when Phoenix enters to Martian's atmosphere at around 23,400 km/h. However, this speed is of horizontal vector with respect to the Mars and Phoenix travel path. I don't know about how fast would be Phoenix be traveling around Mars with respect to Mars's orbital speed.

Well, now, I still haven't found any details about the landing Phoenix path on Mars.

I am supossing that Mars is orbiting in counter-clockwise. On the other hand, Phoenix will be a little behind of Mars until the the Phoenix with its greater speed pick up the Mars on the top of the atmosphere. As the spacecraft was approaching very slow to Mars and hence will be traveling in clockwise around Mars.

The question is: How long will Phoenix be traveling around Mars until its touch down at 68 North and 233 Longitudinal East at 7:36pm Eastern Daylight Time?

Then we are going to be holding the cross fingers for others 17 minutes until knowing its first signal beeps!!!

P.D. Corrected the speed (km/s -> km/h) thanks to Ugordan!

Posted by: ugordan Apr 9 2008, 07:44 PM

I believe you're thinking in km/h and not km/s there. At least I hope you are, I don't think there are many spacecraft that can stand that kind of heating and deceleration...

Posted by: dmuller Apr 13 2008, 08:34 AM

I believe it's more of a "straight-in-and-down" approach, not much orbiting around Mars. The last trajectory maneuver 22 hours before landing will be at about 230,000 km, 10 times as far away as the Deimos orbit. At that time, the gravitational acceleration to the sun is still greater than that to Mars (barring any errors in my algebra)! At the moment, Phoenix is 9.7 million kms above Mars, but still has 81 million kms to go. According to the Phoenix website, its speed at Entry Interface (first contact with the Martian atmosphere, is 5.7 km/sec

Posted by: edstrick Apr 13 2008, 08:42 AM

Cruise, terminal approach, jettison of the cruise stage, and entry will be essentially similar to MER, MSL, Polar Lander and Pathfinder. Details will differ, such as: no relay communications from Polar Lander after it turned away from telemetry-to-earth attitude, etc. But till the hypervelocity meteoric phase of entry is over, it's only details, not the essence of what's happened.

Following parachute deployment, once the bottom of the aeroshell is jettisoned, it's no longer "details" that are different.

Posted by: Stu Apr 14 2008, 07:44 PM

Congratulations to Rui for organising this evening's enlightening and informative "Live Q&A" with Peter Smith. Several UMSFers took part, and Peter answered as many questions as he could in the limited time he had available. You can read the Q&A https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4247522853827111034&postID=6025239728302379165&isPopup=true.

Posted by: Stu Apr 15 2008, 06:21 PM

For those people who haven't yet taken a look (shame on you! ) at Rui's excellent Q&A from yesterday with Peter Smith over on the spacEurope blog, here are some snippets... some real gold nuggets of info in here...

The robotic arm is 2.35 m long and powerful enough to scrape into hard
materials. It is true that if the spacecraft footpad perches on a rock or is
otherwise unstable, then the RA has the strength to move the lander. We often
joke that landing on ice in low gravity will allow us to pull ourselves along
the surface using the RA from rock to rock. If the ice is exceptionally hard
we will not dig through it, but instead, will use our RASP to scrape up
samples to be delivered to instruments on our deck.

The MARDI instrument was found to interfere with the guidance system under
rare circumstances forcing the difficult decision to turn it off during the
descent. The microphone does work and may be used later in the mission to hear
the sounds of the RA scraping on the Martian ice.

Discovering Martian life is beyond the goal of this mission. We are looking
first to see if the Martian arctic is habitable: periodic liquid water,
organic material (it could be from meteors), and energy sources available for
power an organism.

On May 25, the lander "feels" the Martian gravity and begins to accelerate
toward the planet. Its speed increases from 6000 to 12,500 mph. Fifteen
minutes before entry, the lander separates from the cruise stage that have
been its life support system for the last 10 months since launch. Seven
minutes before landing, we enter the upper atmosphere and the aeroshell
experiences the heat of friction with the thin atmosphere. We must enter
within a degree of our proper angle or else we can skip off into space or heat
too rapidly and overwhelm our protection systems.

After the aeroshell has slowed us to 900 mph, the parachute is deployed and we
start a leisurely descent to about 1 km above the surface. At a speed of 150
mph, the spacecraft is released from the backshell and drops toward the
surface. Twelve thruster ignite and using radar for guidance bring us to our
landing site at a speed of 5 mph. the specially designed landing legs take up
the shock of landing. Fifteen minutes later the solar arrays deploy and the
camera starts taking images. Our mission begins.

The first week of the mission consists of taking images and preparing for
gathering samples. At the end of the first week we expect to have delivered a
surface sample to our TEGA instrument. The summer is our prime science
opportunity and we expect to meet all our mission goals by September. As you
might expect, the mission will continue longer than this up until solar
conjunction in mid-November. Recovering operations after that in late December
will be very difficult as the Sun is setting in this high arctic region. By
February we expect that carbon dioxide ice is forming a thick layer around the
lander and without heat Phoenix will not survive. No 4 year mission for us.

The landing site has been well imaged from space by the HiRISE camera, a 0.5 m
telescope with resolution of rocks 1 - 1.5 m or greater. We have found a safe
site with few boulders to insure a safe landing. However, it will not be free
of cobbles and smaller pebbles. I am curious to see how these stones have
weathered over time and whether they are aligned with the polygonal
boundaries.

There are few slopes in the neighborhood and the horizon should look extremely
flat, no hills. However, the site is far from boring. We are near a 10 km
crater and should be on the ejecta blanket containing material brought to the
surface from depth. We are also on the slope of a large volcano, Alba Patera
and may encounter ash blown from the interior. Finally, the site is a shallow
valley and has undergone erosion which may leave signatures.

We land just before summer solstice and the first few months of the mission
have plenty of sunlight altho our power generation depends on the tilt of the
lander which we cannot control. Our science team has many arguments about how
ice might react when the overburden of soil is removed. We will try to force
some of the ice to melt by putting it in the warmest place we can find--the
lander deck, then imaging it as solar heating tries to melt it. The question
is will it sublimate before melting?

We are flying an atomic force microscope built in Switzerland by Urs Staufer
for the first time ever. This is a difficult instrument to fly because it is
sensitive to vibration even the tiny vibes caused by temperature change and
wind. It has worked well in the lab and during environmental tests giving a
resolution of an amazing 100 nm per pixel.

Our TEGA instrument which has 8 ovens is used to determine the minerals in the
soil and to drive off vapors which are measured in a mass spectrometer. The
ovens can only be used once so we must allocate them intelligently. Our basic
goal is a surface measurement, an ice sample, and a sample half way between.
Then will try to verify that what we have seen is real if the signal are near
the noise level.

Our thruster use hydrazine as fuel, its formula is N2H4 and our ultra-pure
mixture has no detectable organics. The combustion products are ammonia and
water. The more difficult question is what about the 1% that doesn't combust,
it is highly reactive and may alter the chemistry of the surface layers that
it contacts. We are vigilant and will try to avoid contaminated areas.

Another major part of our science is the study of polar climate. Not only is
Phoenix a traditional weather station, but we use LIDAR, built by our Canadian
partners, to measure cloud properties and heights. The camera has special
lenses for determining dust opacity and we do look for atmospheric phenomena
like dust devils and solar haloes.

The end of the mission has not been carefully studied and there are no
guarantees after we complete our primary mission. As much as anything, the
NASA budget limits our longevity. We will do everything in our power to last
until the last rays of sunlight energize the spacecraft.

All good things come to an end and we will leave important questions for
future mission to unravel--Phoenix is a stepping stone on the path to
discovering the Truth about Mars.

Good bye all and thank you for your interest!

Posted by: AndyG Apr 16 2008, 08:42 AM

The answers and info were good, Stu - but:

"The microphone does work and may be used later in the mission to hear
the sounds of the RA scraping on the Martian ice."

"May"? I can't think of anything more wonderful, both in terms of your sort of outreach work and for the sheer coolness factor, of sounds from Mars.

Andy

Posted by: nprev Apr 23 2008, 12:53 AM

Quick question, if anybody knows: Does Phoenix have an inertial measurement unit (IMU) on the spacecraft bus itself, or is this or an analogous device installed on the EDL hardware?

Sneaky idea here: IF there's an IMU on Phoenix itself (there has to be some sort of three-axis rate sensor suite for terminal descent, anyhow; FOGs or something?), and IF it could be spun up again post-landing within the power budget, and IF the meteorology data is of sufficient resolution, THEN we have a poor man's seismometer. The IMU/rate sensor suite wouldn't really need to align to any particular direction or orientation as long as the stable platform can be aligned at all with some axial offset along all three; we could measure three-axis acceleration vectors regardless & subtract the angular effects from 0.38g at any given orientation. The met data would be used to distinguish between wind effects vs. actual shakes & quakes.

Okay, ready to hear that I've reinvented the wheel yet again, but made it square this time...

Posted by: nprev Apr 25 2008, 12:10 AM

On another topic, our own ustrax has scored yet another journalistic coup on http://www.spaceurope.blogspot.com/: some words from the director of JPL on Phoenix!

Posted by: Stu May 5 2008, 05:32 AM

Great http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/blogsPost.php?bID=190pic up on the Phoenix blog's latest entry...

Posted by: ustrax May 6 2008, 10:16 AM

And another one in Mark Lemmon's http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/blogsPost.php?bID=191 at Phoenix's website...

Did I ever mention that Lemmon is one of the jury's of spacEurope's competition that has it deadline in 12 DAYS?...I did?

Posted by: Phil Stooke May 6 2008, 06:18 PM

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/may/HQ_M08088_Phoenix_Advisory.html

Phil

Posted by: akuo May 6 2008, 06:31 PM

Finally. The landing is under three weeks away, and there is surprisingly little information about Phoenix. With MER we had documentaries and interviews on NASA-TV well before the actual landing. Is everything going so well that there is nothing to tell?

Posted by: imipak May 6 2008, 07:56 PM

Possibly something to do with it being a Scout class mission?

Posted by: Stu May 6 2008, 10:26 PM

You want news? Here's news...! Emily has GREAT news about http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001416/...

Posted by: Juramike May 7 2008, 12:34 AM

First Phoenix transmission: "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore..."

Posted by: nprev May 7 2008, 12:39 AM

I dunno, Mike; this part of Mars is looking a lot like Kansas! Coolcoolcool....

Posted by: ustrax May 7 2008, 09:08 AM

Nice...
Things are getting pretty exciting...
almost only two weeks, man! Time flies!

EDITED: Just to remind you guys that today, May 8, is Live Q'n'A day at spacEurope with the presence of Michel Denis and Peter Schmitz, starting at 11AM UTC. See you http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-is-once-more-live-qna-day-at.html

Posted by: Stu May 8 2008, 04:25 PM

Congratulations to Rui for another outstanding Q&A over on his spacEurope blog. Some fascinating information came out of today's session, which can be read https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4247522853827111034&postID=6763386376495683845&isPopup=true...

Posted by: ustrax May 8 2008, 04:42 PM

Thanks man!
That was a great two-hours hour...my butt is square...

I was really surprised by the distances...

"Q: where will MEx "be" located witnessing Phoenix's arrival

A: MEX will acquire the PHX signal 3 minutes after the Cruise stage separation (distance between the 2 spacecraft 4000 km), and will keep tracking until 3 minutes after landing (if permitted by the very low elevation seen from the Lander - below 2 degrees after landing, hopefully there is no big rock in the way). At closest approach during tracking, MEX is at about 350 km, at landing time 800 km, and at horizon (absolute transmission limit) already at 2000 km."

350kms?! that will raise MEx's hairs...

And I WANT to see that fireball images as soon as possible!

Posted by: nprev May 9 2008, 02:10 AM

That was fun, and very interesting. Congratulations & thanks, Rui!

Wish I could've stayed to the end, but the 110 freeway is highly unkind to those who are tardy & must be at work on time...

Posted by: ustrax May 9 2008, 04:28 PM

Be sure you get an hour on Thursday...yes...we are doing it http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2008/05/phoenix-special-nearly-15-days-to-mars.html when we will be only 10 days from Mars (get ready Stu!)...
Brave Barry Goldstein...brave!

Doug...I've made the trumpet sound loud...I am waiting for those questions!

Posted by: nprev May 9 2008, 05:00 PM

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy... COOL! I got at least one decent question for him!

Posted by: ustrax May 9 2008, 07:18 PM

Your questions are always decent man...
Hope the schedule fits you this time, I'll be working by then...once more...
The boss will work...once more...as the pirate's parrot...

Posted by: vmcgregor May 9 2008, 08:43 PM

Don't know if you've noticed, but we posted the Phoenix landing press kit. You can find it here as the main item on this http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix (www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix . If it's not the top item anymore, look for it on the left side of the screen).

Also, TCM 4 has been cancelled. That story is also posted on the same page. For now, it looks like we're right on target!

Posted by: djellison May 9 2008, 08:47 PM

Thank's for the heads-up Veronica

"The NASA TV Media Channel will carry a feed with no commentary
or interviews, beginning at 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EDT). The NASA TV Public Channel will
carry a feed with some commentary and interviews, beginning at 3:30 p.m. PDT (6:30 p.m.
EDT). Both feeds will continue through 5 p.m. or later PDT (8 p.m. or later EDT)."

That's especially good news !!

Doug

Posted by: akuo May 9 2008, 08:48 PM

Thanks for the information. I was looking forward to the press kit.

Posted by: Stu May 10 2008, 08:13 AM

For anyone putting together Outreach material for a Phoenix-based presentation, there's a gorgeous pic of Mars shining in the sky as http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0805/Triplets_zubenel_n.jpg...

Posted by: climber May 12 2008, 03:36 PM

The file seams somehow corrupted : here is another location for the file :http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

Posted by: climber May 12 2008, 03:40 PM

BTW, Ustrax, there's a nice picture on the presskit of what Phoenix will see when she'll have landed. Do they compete ?

Posted by: centsworth_II May 12 2008, 05:06 PM

That hilly terrain doesn't look like a very realistic representation of what is expected.

Posted by: climber May 12 2008, 09:03 PM

I agree but... who would had bet a quater on Oppy's first view?

Posted by: remcook May 13 2008, 08:22 AM

Maybe if we had HiRise before oppy arrived...

Posted by: ustrax May 13 2008, 09:32 AM

Not that I'm aware of...but you have 5 days to do so...

Posted by: akuo May 13 2008, 08:04 PM

Today's press conference about Phoenix is on again on NASA-TV at the moment (20:00 UTC). Even the smaller Mars landers seem to attract a lot of interest, there were plenty of questions from the media.

Posted by: dvandorn May 13 2008, 08:08 PM

Hey -- we get to see tiny little peces of Mars under an atomic force microscope on this flight. That's enough to get most any space geek out there excited!

-the other Doug

Posted by: Stu May 13 2008, 08:22 PM

Fascinating briefing, I heard it the first time, and was very impressed by the honesty and enthusiasm of the panel members, but it brought home to me that this is definitely going to be a harder mission to "sell" and promote Outreach-wise than the MERs. I'm beginning to realise it might be quite a challenge (but that's ok! ). The landing site - from what they've said at today's briefing - will be pretty flat and featureless (=SAFE), with maybe just a bare handful of rocks on view, so there'll be no jaw-dropping pictures to compete with the amazing MER panoramas we've all enjoyed seeing and sharing; the focus is on hard science with this mission, lots of graphs and charts and data, and the results will take a lot of careful explaining. I'm sure the JPL guys and gals will be working hard to create and make available images and pictures that will translate this hard science into information that can be shared with and understood by people who haven't got a good knowledge of this kind of thing.

Posted by: climber May 13 2008, 08:34 PM

Doug, are we going to have a "arm" one when Phoenix will be safely on the ground ?

Posted by: edstrick May 14 2008, 05:55 AM

"...so there'll be no jaw-dropping pictures..."

We can always hope for a martian Reindeer to wander past.... or just a lemming or two.

Oh.. that's not a lemming, that's a reporter....

Oh... paris hilton just drove past... that's why the lemmings all left.

Posted by: Stu May 14 2008, 07:07 AM

I know we're all going to be sat here on Landing Day (or Landing Night for us Europeans!) with browser windows open on UMSF and NASA TV, but there's another site you might like to consider keeping an eye on: there's now a Phoenix Twitter page, too. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, it's like a mini-blog, with entries limited to just a few sentences at a time, that is great for sharing snippets of info very quickly. The Phoenix Twitter page already has more than 420 "followers", and although there are only a few posts there so far I know that as landing approaches updates will get more frequent, and on Landing Day/Night itself I think the entries will get quite entertaining and useful.

Anyway, take a look, it will be a fun site to keep an eye on, I'm sure.

http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

Posted by: Sunspot May 14 2008, 07:36 AM

I think i'm going to be too nervous to watch the landing.

Posted by: Stu May 14 2008, 07:46 AM

Like you'll be able to stop yourself...!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 14 2008, 03:01 PM

This would be the appropriate time to point out how I will be watching. Elsewhere I lamented the loss of my high speed internet connection since my cable TV company does not provide service to my new home a mere 10 miles away. So out of necessity I now have satellite TV service. I was browsing all my new channels last night and lo and behold there on channel 376 is NASA TV (which the old company used to carry only sporadically). So I'll be taking off early from work that day and watching on my new Sony flat screen.

Posted by: climber May 14 2008, 03:55 PM

Lucky man! I don't even know how I will be watching!
It'll be 1.36 am here in France when the parachutte will open up! Add a few more minutes for landing, another half an hour for the dust to set down. Then solar panels will unfold, meteo mast and the Pancam one will follow, a picture will be taken and we'll have to wait another 2 hours (if we're lucky) to get it on the ground. It'll be 4 am at best here... and I've got a flight at 7 am in Toulouse one hour away from home.
Anybody want to replace me to go to Milano this very day?

PS : Dan, now that you've moved to your Castle with sattelite TV, brand new flat screen, dark skies,... will you still mind chatting with us, poor UNMSF'ers ?

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 14 2008, 05:08 PM

You can change your flight. Move it up a day and fly to Sacramento and you can watch with me and my family. Best of all, I have a cat named Toulouse.

Posted by: vmcgregor May 14 2008, 05:42 PM

Climber,
Then you should definitely sign up on Twitter to receive updates!. You can have the updates sent to your cell phone. They'll be short and sweet (two sentences), but at least you'll be able to follow along and know what's happening. One reason we're doing Twitter is the landing occurs on a holiday weekend in the US, and we didn't think people would have NASA TV (or the news) on during their picnics and BBQs
Plus, it's just a cool way to reach people who otherwise wouldn't be following the mission.

Posted by: climber May 14 2008, 06:19 PM

Thanks for the invitation !
Nevertheless, I'd better go with Veronica's advise. Thanks, Veronica, I'll just do it.

PS : Dan, I'll name my next cat Sacramento (unless your Castle got a name)

Posted by: volcanopele May 14 2008, 06:25 PM

Not sure how I'll be watching. It is a good possibility that there will be a landing event here at the lab since the mission is being run from here (okay, not HERE, another building, well, you know what I mean ). I don't know, maybe the HiRISE folks can sneak me into the Phoenix building

Posted by: nprev May 14 2008, 08:51 PM

VP, if you get in, we want pics (if they allow that)!!!

Posted by: Stu May 15 2008, 05:14 AM

I'll be sitting here in front of a VERY crowded PC monitor... a window for NASA TV, a window for UMSF, a window for the new Phoenix Twitter page, and now possibly a window for Emily's JPL video chat too... gonna need more screens than The Architect in the Matrix film..!

Posted by: Stu May 15 2008, 05:22 AM

Here's the official timeline from the JPL Press Release, for those who haven't seen it yet at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-074a


-------------------------------------------------

Phoenix Landing Events Schedule
May 14, 2008

Unless otherwise noted, the location for news briefings and commentary are NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Times are Pacific Daylight and some are subject to change.

Thursday, May 22
-- News briefing, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 24
-- News briefing, noon
-- Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity (TCM6), 7:46 p.m.

Sunday, May 25
NOTE: The times below for the Phoenix spacecraft events on May 25 are for a nominal scenario. Remaining navigational adjustments before May 25 could shift the times by up to about half a minute. In addition, the times for some events relative to others could vary by several seconds due to variations in the Martian atmosphere and other factors. For some events, a "give or take" range of times is given, covering 99 percent of possible scenarios from the atmospheric entry time. For events at Mars, times are listed in "Earth-receive time" (ERT) rather than "spacecraft event time" (SCET). This means the listed time incorporates the interval necessary for radio signals traveling at the speed of light to reach Earth from Mars. On landing day, May 25, the two planets are 275 million kilometers apart (171 million miles), which means it takes the signal 15 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth. For some spacecraft events, engineers will not receive immediate radio confirmation.

-- Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity (TCM6X), 8:46 a.m.
-- News briefing, noon
-- Begin non-commentary live television feed from JPL control room, 3 p.m.
-- Begin commentated live television feed from JPL control room, 3:30 p.m.
-- Propulsion system pressurization, 4:16 p.m.
-- Begin "bent-pipe" relay relay (continuous transmission of Phoenix data as it is received) through NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft to Goldstone, Calif., Deep Space Network station, 4:38 p.m.
-- Green Bank, W. Va., radio telescope listening for direct UHF from Phoenix, 4:38 p.m.
-- Cruise stage separates, 4:39 p.m.
-- Spacecraft turns to attitude for atmospheric entry, 4:40 p.m.
-- Spacecraft enters atmosphere, 4:46:33 p.m.
-- Likely blackout period as hot plasma surrounds spacecraft, 4:47 through 4:49 p.m.
-- Parachute deploys, 4:50:15 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Heat shield jettisoned, 4:50:30 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Legs deploy, 4:50:40 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds. -
- Radar activated, 4:51:30 p.m.
-- Lander separates from backshell, 4:53:09 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Transmission gap during switch to helix antenna 4:53:08 to 4:53:14 p.m.
-- Descent thrusters throttle up, 4:53:12 p.m.
-- Constant-velocity phase starts, 4:53:34 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Touchdown, 4:53:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Lander radio off 4:54:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Begin opening solar arrays (during radio silence) 5:13 p.m.
-- Begin NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:28 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.
-- Begin Europe's Mars Express spacecraft playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:30 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.
-- Post-landing poll of subsystem teams about spacecraft status, 5:30 p.m.
-- Mars Odyssey "bent-pipe" relay of transmission from Phoenix, with engineering data and possibly including first images, 6:43 to 7:02 p.m. Data could take up to about 30 additional minutes in pipeline before being accessible. If all goes well, live television feed from control room may show first images as they are received. The first images to be taken after landing will be of solar arrays, to check deployment status.
-- News briefing, 9 p.m.

Monday, May 26
-- News briefing, 11 a.m.

Posted by: Tesheiner May 15 2008, 06:57 AM

It will be too late for me to follow it in real time. I'm on the same timezone as Climber.
What I will do is: Before going to sleep on Sunday night I'll bookmark the thread following the landing (here and perhaps in spaceflightnow.com too). After wake up on Monday morning I will NOT turn on the TV or read any news on paper or internet. I'll open the same thread at the very same point I left on the day before and read the entries one by one.

Posted by: ustrax May 15 2008, 07:35 AM

Tesheiner, I won't miss it for nothing! As I told before this is my FIRST Mars landing...

During the day I'll be in and out looking for news and as the good stuff begins to happen, at 8PM here I'll get myself comfortable at spacEurope's headquarters and enjoy every second of it.
I'll follow it via web, clinged to NASATV, UMSF, Phoenix website and Emily's interventions and trying to get spacEurope updated with the crucial events and reactions from team members.
I'm also thinking about doing a DJ set to fill the silent moments...

10 days only ...just can't believe it...

Posted by: climber May 15 2008, 08:27 AM

This is my 5th following "live"!
1- I started with the 2 Vikings but it was not possible to follow them live at this time. Get confirmations on the night news.
2- I had a very poor internet connection that I had to re-boot several times but, I was in front of my computer for Pathfinder landing (no Nasa TV, updates on whatever website it was)
3- Same place for MPL but a loooong wait and despairs
4- In Pasadena with TPS for Spirit landing : unforgetable experience
5- I was running a conference in the Pyrenees on Oppy's landing eve. I had to come back back to Perpignan (guess where it is?) where I brought an old computer, BIG monitor, and watched Nasa TV on a call line. But I did it and it was fun. I just couldn't understand what the first images where meaning.
So, I won't miss it for nothing either.
Eduardo, we'll update the Phoenix route map for you

Posted by: remcook May 15 2008, 10:29 AM

My first one was Pathfinder, which the BBC spent a whole evening covering

Posted by: nprev May 15 2008, 11:34 AM

I got REAL lucky & followed Viking 1 live. PBS here in the US had live coverage, and it was summer so no school.

Watched the first-ever pic from the surface of Mars come in line by line...absolutely unforgettable!!!!

Rui, can hardly wait to hear you describe your feelings after Phoenix is down & safe; it's quite an experience!

Posted by: ustrax May 15 2008, 11:41 AM

Down & SAFE...that's the mantra...
That will deserve a special "teary eyes" spacEuropeTV emission...

Posted by: 4th rock from the sun May 15 2008, 02:27 PM

Rui, you will have a great time following the landing! I've missed Pathfinder (although I asked a friend to tape it from CNN) but for Spirit and Opportunity I saw the whole thing.
(I can also add to the list Mir deorbiting, Deep Impact, Huygens, and SL9 impact with Jupiter - I was observing visually the planet with a telescope during those days and saw the black markings produced by the impacts)

It's always an exercise of patience with some moments of anxiety :-) . The most interesting thing for me is the fact that you will see something new. It's impossible to guess what the landscape will look like or what the instruments will measure.
So save some strength to when the first images arrive. If for some reason I'd be unable to follow the actual landing, I'd certainly get up latter to see if we have images already (these things always happen in the middle of the night for us in Europe...).

Just some more days to wait !

Posted by: ustrax May 15 2008, 02:38 PM

Saudações 4º calhau a contar do Sol!

If nothing goes wrong I planning not to sleep...and to start working at 9AM...
I believe it deserves the effort...
And all the hypertension...

Guys...we are already live at spacEurope! Barry arrives in 20 minutes!

EDITED: Barry's is in the house!
EDITED 2: Not anymore...

Posted by: ugordan May 15 2008, 02:57 PM

I remember Opportunity landing was happening at some weird hour for us as well, something like 3 or 4 A.M., was frustrating to have to go to sleep after the landing and then quickly get up again at something like 8 A.M. to see the first navcam image. Too bad Phoenix will be the same way as this time I have work to go to in the morning!

Watching Pathfinder coverage on CNN, it sure was anticlimactic knowing it's down safe and realizing we'd have to wait a long time for pictures. For me, Huygens' landing was the most emotional, especially the confirmation of carrier signal directly on the ground. It actually took a while for the first surface image to sink in, to realize this is a completely different world than anything we've ever seen before!

I can imagine it must have felt something like that with the Vikings as well. If only there was an archive of footage of all these historical events as they happened so we can relive the drama as it happened...

Posted by: jamescanvin May 15 2008, 02:58 PM

Looks like a lot of us Europeans will be needing some...



J

Posted by: Stu May 15 2008, 04:19 PM

Rui's latest spacEurope Q&A was excellent, with some very interesting info given by Barry Goldstein. Catch up on the conversation https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4247522853827111034&postID=9094401233612728864&isPopup=true.

Also, there are quite a few Phoenix-related blog posts at this week's http://altairvi.blogspot.com/2008/05/carnival-of-space-54.html...

Posted by: ustrax May 15 2008, 04:31 PM

Barry was in a great mood wasn't he?
And faster than his shadow replying...if it weren't Doug we would be there asking about what did he had for breakfast...

Did BG said that an orbiter would see LIDAR's laser? And that this would be spectacular?!...
Simulation anyone?!

Posted by: djellison May 15 2008, 04:43 PM

Well - Galileo did it during an Earth flyby, and I think a Surveyor spacecraft managed it from the Moon.

Doug

Posted by: ustrax May 15 2008, 04:53 PM

I wasn't aware of that...
And this will be Mars...not Earth or the Moon... ;-)

Posted by: brellis May 15 2008, 06:39 PM

Regarding the huge dust devils - what risk do they post to the landing?

Posted by: djellison May 15 2008, 07:06 PM

We covered that elsewhere - but the collective conclusion was basically, none. Chance of encountering one during EDL = very very low. Actual impact if it does = low.

Doug

Posted by: Tom Tamlyn May 15 2008, 08:10 PM

I've posted a http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5123&view=findpost&p=113669 in the Mars Missions: Past & Future Forum.

TTT

Posted by: climber May 15 2008, 09:09 PM

So do I

Posted by: Gonzz May 15 2008, 09:34 PM

Great Q&A Rui, congrats are in order
Great blog too! Well done

Posted by: climber May 15 2008, 09:48 PM

Rui,
I don't know what's going on about your countdown (on SpacEurope) to Phoenix landing but it's wrong by at least 12 hours

Posted by: dmuller May 16 2008, 01:23 AM

The following animation has been put up at http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/videos.php#edl_hud, very impressive:

Now all that's missing is a second craft filming Phoenix during its landing and broadcasting live on HDTV

Daniel

Posted by: nprev May 16 2008, 01:36 AM

Quick anecdote: I watched Pathfinder land- during my honeymoon! Needless to say, my new wife was less then pleased with me...

Posted by: dmuller May 16 2008, 01:53 AM

My first live Mars landing was Beagle2 ... I was out of reach of live coverage for Pathfinder and MPL.

My first live out-of-this world viewing was Giotto at Halley. Got me hooked. And saw (and especially HEARD) Ulysses launch in person at Cape Canaveral - so much happened in the meantime and the craft is still alive (somewhat). But I also remember running home from school for the first scrubbed launch attempt of Columbia STS1 ... it was a Wednesday afternoon in Europe, no school on Wednesday afternoons :-)

Daniel

Posted by: nprev May 16 2008, 02:08 AM

I've been incredibly lucky, now that I think about it. Haven't missed live coverage of any Mars landing to date, plus Huygens! That streak better continue...

Posted by: ustrax May 16 2008, 07:05 AM

Obrigado Gonzz!

Climber, thanks for telling me that, I made a mistake generation the code...
Corrected now!

EDITED: Guys, if anyone is considering participating in http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2008/04/through-eyes-of-phoenix-online_10.html, the deadline is already this Sunday, May 18, 11:59PM UTC...

Posted by: Tesheiner May 16 2008, 07:37 AM

Nprev, you should have posted it in http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=2879&hl=.

Posted by: Stu May 16 2008, 08:03 AM

"Very impressive"?!?! That's one of the most exciting, inspiring and TERRIFYING animations I've seen from any mission so far (though the MSL landing animation still takes the "What the ***** are you THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?!? That's INSANE!?!?!?!?" Prize!)! It's like flying a chase plane alongside Phoenix on the way down... just unbelievable...

In an ideal world we will all start that movie playing at precisely the correct time for it to be in synch with the actual events as they happen... the next best thing to having a ringside seat...!

Well done to everyone involved in this movie, and in Phoenix Outreach so far, I think they've all done a fantastic job.

(also interested to see the look of the landing site in the movie... hmmm... very close to my first visualisation attempt... )

Posted by: djellison May 16 2008, 08:20 AM

Brilliant movie.

So - come EDL time I've got to have.....

That movie ready to play
The Phoenix realtime website from Dan
UMSF
Twitter
Blog
NTV (Media channel. No offence Gay Yee Hill, but I like my EDL raw and unplugged)

Thank god I'll be able to have three monitors on the job

Doug

Posted by: ustrax May 16 2008, 09:03 AM

I am trying to focus my attention on other things but it is...impossible.
9 days surely mark the frontier between the days where I thought I would witness this calmly, with serenity, and the days where I'm getting all anxious...worst than the days before the Euro 2004 final...just hope this time I'll smile at the end...

I know I will...

Posted by: Zvezdichko May 16 2008, 09:22 AM

I'm also confident Phoenix will succeed. Yeah, a lot of landers have failed, but we know and understand all the reasons why they have failed.

Go Phoenix!

Posted by: ustrax May 16 2008, 09:32 AM

One of the questions made yesterday (thanks for remembering that Doug! I share the same opinion...ACC Memorial Station) was about the naming of the landing site...not a real important issue right now, and Barry see it in a superstitious way..., but just for curiosity, I would like to know what, AFTER a SUCCESSFUL landing, you guys consider would be a proper name for the landing site?

EDITED: I am going to get some music links during landing day at spacEurope, if you guys have any suggestions those are welcome...it doesn't need to be Mars related...I'm choosing some positive, strong tracks...

Posted by: Zvezdichko May 16 2008, 09:37 AM

Yeah, that would be a great name!

Posted by: dmuller May 16 2008, 10:08 AM

That can, of course , be done! I can insert an 'event' into the realtime simulation that tells you when to press play so that it tallies with the progress of the script ...

OR, if you have both the script and the movie downloaded on your PC, then the script can tell the movie to start at the appropriate time (possibly lags 1 or 2 secs as the loading of the movie takes slightly different lengths of time depending on the computer etc). But this only works if BOTH the script and the movie are on your PC. DONT rush to download the realtime simulation yet, it will run out of data in 3 hours ...

Would people be interested in the above functionality? Requires some reprogramming but (fingers crossed) should be able to be done.

now can anybody employ me to do these things ... it's great fun and distraction from real work

Oh yes, I dont suggest we all watch that movie in realtime on the web, the server there may not make it

Doug ... yeah for once it's good to have a big cubicle with all that technology ... I'm still trying to figure out whether to watch from home (large monitor) or go to the DSN visitor center nearby (=4 hours drive, that's next door in Australia)


Daniel

Posted by: Zvezdichko May 16 2008, 10:34 AM

Daniel,

I found something that may be useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUCJkF9aW7g

This clip is almost 7 minutes long and in my opinion represent the EDL sequence relatively accurately.

EDIT : I missed the upper post with the simulation movie. Unfortunately it doesn't display on my machine correctly, checking it several hours later on another console.

Best wishes,

Svetlio.

Posted by: djellison May 16 2008, 10:46 AM

I think the Phoenix teams own EDL real-time-with-height/speed is more useful to be honest.


Daniel - I say add an event into the time line that just says 'Beginning of Phoenix EDL simulation movie' or something like that, and we can all click play together


Doug

Posted by: Stu May 16 2008, 07:53 PM

Here's one for ya... a YouTuber made an http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAy_ra_38MM... events are now shown in proper chronological order, and there's s well-deserved guest appearance by... well, you'll just have to watch it, won't you..?

Posted by: dmuller May 17 2008, 01:38 AM

A rather long post with several replies:

I agree it's by far the best. I actually wrote my script because real (i.e. not teaser) animations like that were hard to find, and I cannot recall any landing where there is some sort of speed/altitude continuous progress shown.
Actually, I found the animation COMFORTING rather than TERRIFYING ... I did test-"land" my script, and I knew speed and altitude will go down to 0 at landing (I programmed it, didn't I), but the numbers were running so fast until touchdown that I really thought it's gonna "crash".



IMHO the best space related background music is still from the IMAX movie "Hail Columbia". Full of power and optimism. Unfortunately it's not freeware :-(




Thanks Svetlio. Yes I saw it as well, but the Phoenix team's own EDL gives me altitude and speed second by second. Will spend most of my weekend plugging the numbers from there


I will do that

We are now 8 days 22 hours 20 minutes (ERT) from landing on Mars. Altitude above Mars 2.08 million km, distance to fly 16.9 million km. It was a mere 286 days ago when the final launch poll heard "Go Phoenix".

Daniel

Posted by: dmuller May 17 2008, 03:16 AM

needless to say the landing scenario in the EDL movie does NOT match the nominal timeline published earlier this week. Doug, you're gonna be landing a few times on Mars (the movie, the script which follows the nominal timeline, and NASA TV)

Posted by: climber May 18 2008, 01:07 AM

I'll realy enjoy these views! I hope we'll be surprised anyway.

I have a question here : what kind of tones do we expect during EDL?
Will they be similar to the MERs which mean more or less this way :
Differents tones for speed reductions
Parachutte opens
Heatshield jetissons
Legs deploy
Radar starts
Lander separates
Retros start
Engines stop (this will be actualy different from MERs)
Can we expect to receive basicaly this (I guess from the orbiters) or something different? Will they be played "live" from the orbiters?
Anyway, for the one who want to listen again Spirit landing (TPS version), here it is http://www.planetary.org/radio/show/00000100/

Posted by: djellison May 18 2008, 08:37 AM

We're not getting tones, it's UHF telemetry directly, and in real time, via Mars Odyssey.

Doug

Posted by: Julius May 18 2008, 10:24 AM

I remember the Spirit and Opportunity landings...was up at 4 am..was in tears

Posted by: nprev May 18 2008, 01:12 PM

It was early evening in Alaska for both of the MER landings (well, that time of the year up there it's evening almost all the time!), and I drove my wife & stepson nuts by alternately running upstairs to see CNN coverage & running back downstairs to my computer to try to get the NASA TV stream to work...good times, good times!!!

Posted by: climber May 18 2008, 06:36 PM

Thank you Doug, I didn't get it right before. Anyway, I think the most important milestones will correspond to the (MER) tones like : parachute opens, heatshield jetissons, etc...
Difference could be in the Dopler that will tell us about the slow down "live". We didn't have this with the MER, didn't we ?

Posted by: dmuller May 19 2008, 01:12 AM

Does anybody know if this happened, and if it affects the landing and/or entry interface time?

Anyway, based on the EDL movie and previous timeline, I can add the following additional events that I have worked out (thus no guarantee for accuracy) .. all in UTC:


L....| SCET.................| ERT..................| Event
.....| 23-May-2008 13:18:00 | 23-May-2008 13:33:09 | Enters Mars Sphere of Influence (SOI)
.....| 25-May-2008 11:25:00 | 25-May-2008 11:40:20 | Gravitational tug of Mars exceeds that of the Sun
.....| 25-May-2008 22:00:00 | 25-May-2008 22:00:00 | NASA TV raw coverage (media channel) starts
.....| 25-May-2008 22:30:00 | 25-May-2008 22:30:00 | NASA TV coverage (public channel) with comments
.....| -------------------- | 25-May-2008 23:31:13 | Entry Interface in Spacecraft Event Time
.....| -------------------- | 25-May-2008 23:38:32 | Landing in Spacecraft Event Time
.....| 25-May-2008 23:29:13 | 25-May-2008 23:44:33 | Mars Express acquires Phoenix signal
-450 | 25-May-2008 23:31:02 | 25-May-2008 23:46:22 | EDL movie - press play now
-410 | 25-May-2008 23:31:42 | 25-May-2008 23:47:02 | Maximum speed
-358 | 25-May-2008 23:32:34 | 25-May-2008 23:47:54 | Peak Deceleration
-335 | 25-May-2008 23:32:57 | 25-May-2008 23:48:17 | Peak Heating
-236 | 25-May-2008 23:34:36 | 25-May-2008 23:49:56 | Enters 3-sigma landing ellipse if landing is nominal
.....| 25-May-2008 23:38:32 | 25-May-2008 23:53:52 | Touchdown on Mars [46sec]
+006 | 25-May-2008 23:38:38 | 25-May-2008 23:53:58 | Helium venting [46sec]
+620 | 25-May-2008 23:41:33 | 25-May-2008 23:56:53 | Mars Express looses Phoenix signal
.....| 26-May-2008 02:14:40 | 26-May-2008 02:30:00 | Possibly first picture of Phoenix solar panel


Daniel

EDIT: neat revised logo Doug, very fitting!

Posted by: Phil Stooke May 19 2008, 03:36 AM

"Does anybody know if this happened"

Yes, it did - reported on Twitter.

Phil

Posted by: Decepticon May 19 2008, 04:43 AM

Just to clarify will NASA television as seen on my Satellite Dish-network will carry this live?

I don't want to be Disappointed with 24/7 ISS broadcast.

Posted by: edstrick May 19 2008, 09:03 AM

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html
NASA TV Schedule
The programs listed below are changes to the regular Daily Program Schedule.
All times are Eastern U.S. time.
(non phoenix posts have been deleted. The media channel is not carried on Dish Network or Direct-TV. They carry the Public channel)

May 22, Thursday
2:30 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - Entry Descent and Landing Overview - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

May 24, Saturday
3 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - Landing Preview - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

May 25, Sunday
3 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - JPL (Public and Media Channels)
6 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Landing Coverage - JPL (Media Channel)
6:30 - 8:45 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Landing Coverage - JPL (Public Channel)
9:30 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - First Downlink of Data - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

May 26, Monday
12 a.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Post Landing Briefing - JPL (Public and Media Channels)
2 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Update Briefing - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

Posted by: ustrax May 19 2008, 09:25 AM

Eastern US?
Pacific Daylight?
Why can't they use just one single time?!

For those (for me...I get lost with this conversions...if gets useful for you the better...) in this side of the ocean I've created a http://bp3.blogger.com/_WwMecmTw8kE/SDFGLktC23I/AAAAAAAAA4E/UmEtWMro1vI/s1600-h/landing_Schedule.jpg.

Guess I'll have to do the same for NASATV Schedule now...

Posted by: ugordan May 19 2008, 09:44 AM

Thanks for the UTC times, Rui. Looks like it won't be as bad for me as I thought, landing at around 2 A.M. local time. That's pretty manageable. What's NOT manageable is trying to get some sleep afterwards.

Posted by: ustrax May 19 2008, 10:13 AM

You're welcome ugordan...

Sleep? Who said anything about sleeping?...

EDITED: I've posted a http://bp2.blogger.com/_WwMecmTw8kE/SDFYpUtC24I/AAAAAAAAA4M/IrNfZE7yNks/s1600-h/landing_Schedule.jpg since the original one had a small error on the timing of May 25 first news briefing.

Posted by: nprev May 19 2008, 11:35 AM

Terrific; thanks, Rui!

I'm just glad that 26 May is a US holiday (Memorial Day); gonna dose up on the caffeine & go the duration, then crash all next day...

Posted by: ustrax May 19 2008, 11:51 AM

I'm not glad that the 23rd is holiday here and not the 26...

Crash?...Don't you dare to use that word! We're quite sensitive this days...

Posted by: ugordan May 19 2008, 11:55 AM

LOL, I have a holiday on 22nd and the Friday is off so we can have an extended weekend. Anyways, a holiday is better than no holiday!

Posted by: nprev May 19 2008, 11:58 AM

Eek! Apologies profound, you're right...I meant 'shamelessly sleep throughout the next day, blissfully aware of the fact that Phoenix has landed and is safe & sound'...just by way of clarification!

Posted by: climber May 19 2008, 12:06 PM

Next time, you'd better use the Brasilian Portuguese word

Posted by: Astro0 May 19 2008, 12:14 PM

Hmmm. All this talk of holidays.
Just spare a thought for the guys and gals at the DSN who, no matter when, holiday or not will be working to ensure that the data gets back to Earth for everyone at the mission and of course UMSF to see.

As for me, it will be Monday morning talking to the gathered public, waiting for that landing confirmation signal to come through the Goldstone complex and then, I'm hoping, the first images and surface science operations coming down through our 70-metre dish here in Canberra.

Think of us while you're putting together those cool (and I mean arctic) panoramas.

Go Phoenix!
Astro0

PS: If anyone is interested, check out my TV report on the Phoenix EDL at http://www.abc.net.au/australiawide/stories/2008/200805/s2249381.htm
The crazy things I do for space exploration outreach!

Posted by: nprev May 19 2008, 12:29 PM

OUTSTANDING!!!

Glen, you wildman, you, you're my new hero!!! Brilliant linkage, terrific execution, best damn outreach in mass media I've seen maybe ever!

Posted by: climber May 19 2008, 01:23 PM

Thanks Rui, it'll be very handy.
I think I have had a bright idea ( )
I printed your Schedule, found an old hard calendar and taped it on it. Actualy, the calendar is in Landscape format and I taped it in portrait. Now, the schedule goes all the way from february to december.
What is left and still visible of the calendar is : January 2004
How do you call this? Supersticious ?
Go Phoeniox, GO.

Posted by: dmuller May 19 2008, 01:33 PM

Glad you didnt simulate the "lander separation" step

Posted by: ustrax May 19 2008, 01:37 PM

Now THERE's something REALLY cool...

And ugordan...forget what I said earlier...that's my holiday too and I have the Friday off...just as you...

Posted by: Tesheiner May 19 2008, 02:18 PM

Excellent job. Where's the swearbox!!! <clinck>, <clinck>, <clinck>
And may I use your own words: "Woah! That was F A N T A S T I C !"

Posted by: djellison May 19 2008, 02:37 PM

In my head, AstroO was SOOOOoo different!!

Brilliant way of touching the details. It's a dramatic demonstration that freefall on Earth, is about the same as falling under an enormous parachute on Mars.

Doug

Posted by: Stu May 19 2008, 02:42 PM

Brilliant Glen, absolutely brilliant!

Have to say tho, I hope Phoenix doesn't land on the same part of its anatomy that you did...

Posted by: Stu May 19 2008, 05:30 PM

Very interesting "Phoenix Diary" entry from Tom Pike, one of the British scientists involved in the Phoenix mission, on the http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7408033.stm today...

"...the first images we should be seeing will be of the Phoenix lander and its immediate surroundings. These photos might not be of huge scientific interest but we'll all be feeling like proud parents in Tucson as we share these first pictures with the rest of the world. Or we could all be standing dumbstruck as the images fail to appear and we realise the mission most of us have spent over a decade preparing for lies as one more piece of space junk on the cruel surface of Mars. "

( Hmmm, Tom Pike... now why does that name sound http://spaceurope.blogspot.com..? )

Posted by: nprev May 19 2008, 06:53 PM

Heyyy...great interview, Stu!!! I don't know how you & Rui do it!!!

Microfossils...hadn't thought of that possibility, frankly. Fact of the matter is, though, that we might not be able to positively identify them as such even if they're there. More questions, more questions...

Posted by: Stu May 19 2008, 06:59 PM

Well, I've found that if you ask politely, and emphasise the public interest in the mission, the scientists are usually very happy to share their thoughts and answer questions, and the Mars community is especially generous with their time and resources. In fact, it has to be said that I've never been turned down or ignored by a single NASA person I've written to. Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, I can't say the same for people from other agencies.

Posted by: Alex Chapman May 19 2008, 07:04 PM

Very similar to what was said at the Phoenix Science News Briefing from the 14th of May. From what I understood the first picture to be returned will be of the solar arrays to confirm that they have opened followed by other photos confirming correct deployment of the MET mast and the opening of the bio barrier covering the arm.

The whole of the press conference is available at http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3656&Itemid=1. They achieve all the scheduled programs from NasaTV. Can’t say I know who runs the site but it’s a great resource. Never have to miss a press conference again.

Posted by: Stu May 19 2008, 07:09 PM

Very similar yes, but I always think it's great when these guys take the time to do things like that and share their time with us when they're so busy

Posted by: Alex Chapman May 19 2008, 07:23 PM

Couldn’t agree more. If I was them I would find it hard to answer questions from us when on top of preparing for the landing many of Rui’s interviewees are full time academics with everything that entails. I think it just goes to show how the online community is growing and developing more recognition by the professionals.

Tom Pike might be getting nervous but at the moment I am almost as bad as I was before my daughter was born

Posted by: Stu May 20 2008, 05:41 AM

Not enough websites to keep an eye on during the Phoenix landing? Well, don't worry, here's another one...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/blogs/

Posted by: edstrick May 20 2008, 07:47 AM

With the exception of "weird" locales that do not keep daylight time and do variou weird things, The US divides into 4 (excluding Alaska/Hawaii/etc) time zones.

Eastern time currently is Eastern Daylight Time, so it's 4 hours later than Pacific time.

Eastern / Central / Mountain / Pacific.

I have utterly no idea how the <expletive deleted> changed times for the start and end of daylight time match anything else the world is doing.

PS. It's summer now in Texas. Fireflies are blinking. We're about 4 to 6 weeks away from the end of Summer (part 1). Then we get some 2 to 2 1/2 months of INFERNO.

Posted by: tuvas May 20 2008, 02:53 PM

I plan on being in the room where I think the pictures will go live, where 2 years previously, I was watching a satellite that I had build as we found out piece by piece that the rocket blew up 2 years previously, while talking to the press at the same time that we were trying to figure out what was going on ourselves... It was sad, but, hey, it happens. It will also be the same room that 3 months before, I had watched as confirmation that MRO had successfully entered orbit, thus ensuring me a job for some time to come. I wish the Phoenix team the best of luck, although I must confess, since I first heard about it 5 years ago, my sub conscience has been expecting that the mission will crash (I don't know why, but during MER, I never had those feelings...) Anyways, I hope my sub conscience is wrong, it should be an exciting time!

Posted by: marsbug May 20 2008, 03:14 PM

I think a small dose of pessimism is a sensible cushion against dissapointment. I had a similar feeling about cosmos 1, and sadly that was bourn out. But then I also felt grim forebodings about the launch of Dawn and New Horizons, and they have been great succeses to date. But then I'm not in the space industry, so maybe my intuition's not as finely tuned...GULP>

Posted by: centsworth_II May 20 2008, 04:28 PM

I like to think that NASA has passed the
point on the learning curve where failed
Mars landings are frequent and that from
here on out failed landings will be rare.

Posted by: simonbp May 20 2008, 05:41 PM

And the last state of the Union to not keep Daylight savings just happens to be Arizona, home of the Phoenix control center... It does, though, make it convenient, as Tucson will be on the same time as JPL for the entire mission...

Simon

Posted by: jasedm May 20 2008, 06:31 PM

Amen to that!

Posted by: tuvas May 20 2008, 07:11 PM

Actually, there is one other state (Hawaii), but yes, it is nice to be in the same time as JPL for most of the time.

Posted by: edstrick May 21 2008, 05:28 AM

"...And the last state of the Union to not keep Daylight savings just happens to be Arizona, home ..."

Except, unless it's changed since I was trapped out out in the desert southwest on a 2 1/2 week vacation while Pathfinder landed, the Navaho and perhaps other indian reservations in Arizona.. they do keep daylight savings time.. so shift out of synch with the rest of the state!

Posted by: climber May 21 2008, 07:06 AM

Did you realize that we're now counting days until landing using fingers in only one hand?

Posted by: edstrick May 21 2008, 08:39 AM

I thought we were counting down to landing by the INCREASING numbers of tums, rollaids, pepcid, zantac, prilosec... etc antacid pills the flight ops team is consuming.

Posted by: ustrax May 21 2008, 08:57 AM

I'm already using hours in the countdown...

111 Hours to Mars as I write this!

Posted by: Stu May 21 2008, 02:55 PM

If anyone wants one of these...

... just click http://journals.aol.com/stuartatk/Cumbrian-Sky/entries/2008/05/21/a-phoenix-landing-survival-kit.../3671

Posted by: ustrax May 21 2008, 03:06 PM

You just anticipated me!
I was coming here to post that same image!

Posted by: djellison May 21 2008, 03:06 PM

You forgot http://www.marslive.co.uk/?p=3

Posted by: jamescanvin May 21 2008, 03:08 PM

You know, not to be pedantic, but you can't have. UMSF didn't exist back when the MERs landed, even in its old guise of mer-project or whatever it was.

Believe it or not this is the first Mars landing for UMSF!

James

Posted by: Stu May 21 2008, 03:12 PM

Sorry Doug, I hadn't read your post. The list has been amended accordingly! (and you now get two links to http://www.marslive.co.uk/?p=3for the price of one, very cunning...! )

Posted by: Stu May 21 2008, 03:16 PM

Are you sure? I'm sure there was some kind of pre-MER landing forum up and running then... ? Oh well, thanks for pointing that out, I've corrected it.

Posted by: jamescanvin May 21 2008, 03:30 PM

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1 - Feb 8th 2004 What's that, about sol 35A/15B?

Was the 'yellow forum' up and running then?

Posted by: remcook May 21 2008, 03:35 PM

perhaps the newmars forum? that's where I first saw the link to UMSF (or whatever it was called then).

Posted by: djellison May 21 2008, 03:39 PM

Maybe Stu's thinking of the Beagle 2 Yahoo Group I had at the time.

UMSF's previous life as mer.rlproject.com started in Feb '04.

Doug

Posted by: ustrax May 21 2008, 03:43 PM

Before arriving here I used to be at the Mars yellow forum, but only after the landing...that's where I met Stu and knew that this forum existed...
And I saw you there yesterday Doug...

Posted by: djellison May 21 2008, 03:46 PM

Yeah - I've not posted there in years, but they were saying nice things about the DEM movie, so I thought I'd give them the link to the proper version that isn't horribly compressed like the APOD version

Doug

Posted by: ustrax May 21 2008, 03:52 PM

Cool coincidence...I hadn't visit the place for a long time and there you were...you and ES...

Posted by: Stu May 21 2008, 04:04 PM

Yep, that's the one. I KNEW I wasn't going through all that alone!

Posted by: Tesheiner May 21 2008, 04:08 PM

Perhaps it's time to resurrect this thread: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1689

Posted by: climber May 21 2008, 04:25 PM

...and my 50th birthday !

Posted by: nprev May 22 2008, 12:13 AM

Yep, gonna be a peanut-eatin' fool Sunday afternoon (PDT); as a bonus, they do go exceedingly well with beer!

Posted by: hendric May 22 2008, 06:56 PM

<panic>
What kind of peanuts?! Shelled, unshelled? Spanish? Honey roasted? Chocolate covered! Aggh!
</panic>

Posted by: djellison May 22 2008, 07:09 PM

I'll be going down the shelled salted variety.

Doug

Posted by: dvandorn May 22 2008, 07:10 PM

Mine will likely be the honey-roasted variety.

-the other Doug

Posted by: Stu May 22 2008, 07:20 PM

I can't STAND frakking peanuts. Almost as bad as liquorice. Under the rules, what is the bare minimum number of peanuts I can eat without poking luck in the eye with a sharp stick?

Posted by: djellison May 22 2008, 07:32 PM

Two.

One is 'peanut'. You have to eat good luck peanuts

Eat two, and you're set.

Doug

Posted by: Stu May 22 2008, 07:36 PM

That's a relief, I had visions of having to sit here chomping on the ******* things all the way through EDL. If that had been the case my first view of the martian arctic would have been glimpsed through a mess of spit and peanut bits, after barfing up all over my monitor...

Posted by: marsbug May 22 2008, 07:51 PM

Dry roasted, with a celabratory drink to wash them down when the landings confirmed!

Posted by: Roby72 May 22 2008, 10:17 PM

ESA sends EDL transmission about an hour after landing:

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM3ZB1YUFF_index_0.html

Did Phoenix also send via another orbiter ( MRO) during descent and more "live" ??
Is direct transmission to large earth radio telecopes possible ?

Robert

Posted by: djellison May 22 2008, 11:05 PM

Phoenix will send data via UHF that will get received by MRO, Mars Odyssey and Mars Express. Mars Odyssey will be relaying the data back live, in real time, to JPL. The other two will be replaying it back later to make sure they've got all of it

The Green Bank ( http://www.gb.nrao.edu/ ) radio observatory will listen for Phoenix in real time - but the signal will not be strong enough to get data - just strong enough to identify the signal and track the doppler shift.

Doug

Posted by: bgarlick May 23 2008, 03:52 AM

When phoenix lands will it take pictures/panorama before deploying the camera to full height?
Doing so could be usefull because One can make a large baseline stereo pair between the pre-mast-extented and post-mast-extended pictures. This would create
a much larger base-line paralax than can be attained between left/right eye pairs. Since this isn't a rover, there will be no
other oportunity to create large base line stereo. Once the camera is deployed I am sure there is no way to go back to the low/stowed
position. I made large base line stereo pictures in just this way from pre/post camera mast deploy pictures from Mars Pathfinder. (note, the images
obviously have to be viewed 90 degrees rotated since the large base line is as if you were holding your head sideways.)

(Also taking pre-mast deploy pictures can give a perspective of the instrument deck and how it survived the landing,etc that can never be attained again
after mast extension)

Posted by: climber May 23 2008, 05:45 AM

As what said before, we'll need a ONE topic only for Phoenix. Doug said that it'll be done shortly before EDL.
The reason for this is : I'm looking for the link to whre the Nasa press conferences are posted when finished that was posted here a few days ago and I cannot find again.
BTW, I didn't evn know in which theard to post this question !
Anybody can help me please ?
Thanks

Posted by: Stu May 23 2008, 05:47 AM

I think you want http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.orgsite...

Posted by: Roby72 May 23 2008, 10:05 AM

Thanks Doug !

Robert

Posted by: climber May 23 2008, 10:46 AM

Yes! Thanks Stu.
I thought they've already uploaded yesterday Phoenix conference, but it's not there yet.

Posted by: Stu May 23 2008, 01:43 PM

http://www.cio.com/article/print/365763 about how NASA is planning/hoping to handle the huge online interest in the landing...

Posted by: jmjawors May 23 2008, 03:36 PM

If this is what you're looking for, it's up now.

http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3698&Itemid=1

Posted by: ustrax May 23 2008, 03:43 PM

Guys

The results for spacEurope's Through the eyes fo the Phoenix are now http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2008/05/phoenix-special-through-eyes-of-phoenix.html...
Soon they'll be "live" at the mission's website.

And it seems like we have two winners in the house!

Congratulations Doug and Skyelab!
And thanks to the others who participated, there will always be another chance...

Posted by: Zvezdichko May 23 2008, 03:53 PM

Many congratulations to Doug, Jose and Brian!

Posted by: djellison May 23 2008, 03:58 PM

I'll do some massive rendered version for desktops of every size later tonight Thanks to the Phoenix team for providing the goodies, and Lewis for providing the book, I'm looking forward to that!

And jury members...the cheque's are in the post

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 23 2008, 04:01 PM

Yes, congratulations to all, and thanks to Rui for running such an innovative contest!

Speaking as one of the judges, it was tough. The entries were all just terrific, and I don't think my point spread between each candidate in each category was ever more then 3 points on a 1-to-10 scale...and all on the high end of that!

Posted by: Juramike May 23 2008, 04:04 PM

Wow!

Those are all absolutely beautiful.

Congratulations to all the entrants and thanks for posting all the entries on the website.

Posted by: ustrax May 23 2008, 04:11 PM

Yes they are...

Now we'll just to wait 51 hours and 43 minutes to see the real stuff...

Doug...don't forget that mine has an additional 0...

Posted by: centsworth_II May 23 2008, 04:20 PM

I actually like Doug's "Backshell in Sight" better than the chosen winner.

Posted by: ustrax May 23 2008, 04:45 PM

That wasn't the jury's veredict...

Our Stu has done it again and I've used the winners images to http://spaceurope.blogspot.com/2008/05/phoenix-special-arrival.html...

Posted by: djellison May 23 2008, 05:05 PM

So do I - I don't like my rocks very much.

Posted by: nprev May 23 2008, 05:25 PM

Stu & Rui....WOW!!!!!!!

That flat knocked me out!!! Absolutely beautiful!!!

Posted by: Stu May 23 2008, 05:42 PM

Glad you like it, but I must point out that that was ALL Rui's work, so creatively adding the pictures and poem together, and all those visual effects too. I just provided the text. I can't put into words how grateful I am to Rui for turning one of my poems into something so, well, beautiful...

For anyone who wants to read the poem without the Star Wars opening titles effect, here it is...

ARRIVAL

Phoenix I was named, and tomorrow
I will finally taste and fly in flame!
Screaming through the martian sky, the light
of my arrival will be bright enough
to put to shame the twin moons’ gloomy glow,
and should those weary rovers far below me
lift their dust-dimmed eyes towards the stars
they’ll see me slicing through their heaven, far
brighter and more glorious than any mere meteor.
And I, wrapped in great flapping sheets
of flame – Barsoom’s own Beowulf, riding
the raging dragon of Entry and Descent –
will cry out loudly “I am here!”

I do not fear the landing; nor do I waste
my time with worries of the million ways
my mayfly life could end before I even reach
the frozen ground. If I fail, my broken body found
a hundred years from now,
an almost-not-there stain upon Green Valley’s
barren floor my story will still be
one of victory, for I was never meant to fly;
if Fate had smiled on others meant
to touch the face of Mars I would not even
have been born, and my eyes and hands
and feet would all have flown elsewhere.

But here I am! And as Mars looms ever larger
up ahead my dream-dulled head begins
to fill with thoughts of with what I’ll see
tomorrow, when these gritty, sleep-filled eyes
of mine awake and open for the first time.
An endless open plain of ochre stone, painfully
bare, with just a lonely, frost-fringed rock
placed here and there to catch my roving eye?
Or will great boulders stand nearby,
high enough to hide the far horizon from
my view? I’ll know this, and more, soon…

One thing I will never know is
The brittle beauty of a starry martian sky.
From my valley home, so close to the gateau-layered pole,
Sol will circle me like a long lost bird;
never rising, never setting,
a molten metal ball rolling ‘round the rim
of my world as I stand alone
in the land of the Shrunken Midnight Sun,
watching my shadow sweep around me
for hour after endless, endless hour.
I shall be a sundial, marking time until I die.

Before then, my faithful friends, I long to show you wonders!
But if my flight ends in Mars’ air, and no word
is heard from me again then promise me you’ll send
another in my place, for there are secrets
and surprises here that cry out to be found,
and though I hope to dig beneath the frigid ground
to touch and taste the water there I know
Mars has destroyed more of my kind
than it has granted life. So lift your eyes
up to the sky, and as these final tortuous hours tick by
wish me nothing more than peace, and
keep me company as I sleep.

© Stuart Atkinson 2008

Posted by: ustrax May 23 2008, 06:17 PM

You deserve it man...

"But if my flight ends in Mars’ air..."

But if my flight ends in Mars’ air?! Don't you dare to even think about going my 100% chance of success prediction!

Posted by: djellison May 23 2008, 10:40 PM

Oh F*** we're on the front page of the Phoenix website

My thoughts http://www.dougellison.com/?p=12

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 23 2008, 10:54 PM

Bummer!!! Great job, guys, all around!

Posted by: SpaceListener May 24 2008, 01:09 AM

Will DSN be tracking closely to Phoenix until when? I assume it will be until the cruise part is separated from Phoenix. That is it would be between 7-9 minutes before to the landing.

Then, which of the three Mars orbiters will be tracking closely to Phoenix during its EDL and first hours on Martian land?

Posted by: elakdawalla May 24 2008, 01:12 AM

All three orbiters are listening. Odyssey will be relaying Phoenix telemetry directly to the Deep Space Network at Goldstone. The other two will be recording for later playback; both start playback around 00:30 UT on May 26, but the data won't be available for a couple hours. On top of that, the Green Bank radio telescope will be tracking the carrier signal.

--Emily

Posted by: climber May 24 2008, 01:36 AM

Rui, Stu, Doug, Emily, Others...
I do not fing words! (even in French ).
A few years ago, I was thinking Nasa was given us the best we could hope for. I was wrong. What would space exploration be like without what you're doing ? Without your dedication, without your expertise, without your spirit ?
Go UMSF, Go SpacEurope, Go TPS, Go Phoenix

Posted by: tedstryk May 24 2008, 01:43 AM

Awesome...Doug, that rendering is incredible.

Posted by: deglr6328 May 24 2008, 03:14 AM

OMGZ! I just went to the Phoenix homepage and saw your name! congratulations!

Posted by: dmuller May 24 2008, 06:08 AM

Announcement for those following the Phoenix Real-Time Simulation at http://www.dmuller.net/phoenix
Just in case anything goes wrong with the server, there is a backup / mirror site of the script at http://www.dmuller.com/phoenix
Enjoy watching the landing! Daniel

Posted by: dmuller May 24 2008, 06:11 AM

SpaceListener, in addition to Emily's answer; Phoenix will switch off its radio one minute after touchdown and wait for the orbiters to be back in radio reach. Have a look at this: http://www.planetary.org/image/EDL_Geometry_8a.jpg

Posted by: brellis May 24 2008, 06:43 AM

This fly on the thread wall says, congrats and thanks all around to everyone for helping bring the Phoenix experience closer than I ever thought possible!

Posted by: imipak May 24 2008, 01:28 PM

Spotted this in a http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/23/mars.lander/index.html?iref=mpstoryview (in the middle of generic copy about EDL events, the chances of success, nailbiting, etc):

Now's your chance for some royalties, Doug - send them your SpacEurope images! It's the closest thing they're going to get in the next 34 hours...

Posted by: ustrax May 24 2008, 02:39 PM

My thought too...cool ain't it?...

...And I love you too...you know that don't you?...

Man...we're getting all emotional around here...it must be those butterflies...

Posted by: Stu May 24 2008, 05:32 PM

For those who haven't seen it yet, Emily has a link to an excellent http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/nasa/index.html on the TPS Blog... very high quality... I've just been watching some great footage shot onboard ISS...

Posted by: climber May 24 2008, 11:06 PM

From Twitter : A small dust storm blew over the landing site today, but now the weather looks clear for landing. 25 hours and 1 million miles til landing

Posted by: MahFL May 24 2008, 11:39 PM

Less than 24 hours now..........

Posted by: dvandorn May 24 2008, 11:45 PM

Actually, no, it's right now just a touch more than 24 hours to landing.

Landing time tomorrow is 4:53 pm Pacific Daylight Time. PDT is 7 hours behind London time, and two hours behind my time.

So, the landing tomorrow will be at 6:53 pm my time (CDT), and it is 8 minutes until then -- 6:45 -- right now. So, we're 24 hours and eight minutes away...

-the other Doug

Posted by: dmuller May 24 2008, 11:47 PM

Well that depends if you are an ERT or SCET kind of guy. In any way, you will be munching peanuts in 24 hours ... either already, or still ...

Posted by: MahFL May 25 2008, 12:02 AM

I went by the Phoenix site countdown...........

Posted by: gndonald May 25 2008, 12:37 AM

Going by the 'Touchdown' clock on the website Phoenix should reach Mars at approximately 7:40am (+/- 10 min) on the 26th of May 2008 (West Australian) time.

Posted by: dvandorn May 25 2008, 01:07 AM

I was calling out the time based on the NASA Phoenix site. So, NASA are ERT kind of guys and Tucson are SCET kind of guys?

Besides, I still insist that nothing occurs until someone is aware of it...

-the other Doug

Posted by: climber May 25 2008, 02:14 AM

So, you don't beleive in Martian beings ?

Posted by: climber May 25 2008, 03:15 AM

Good news from Twitter : Navigation is looking good. Yay!! Team waived off tonight's opportunity for a flight path adjustment. May do one tomorrow am if needed

Posted by: Tman May 25 2008, 08:24 AM

Great job guys!

Afraid that the streaming quality could suffer from too many users I will make no secret of it - There's a site from a nice guy (Neil Walker) that provides NASA TV up to 1200 kbits (or 2300 by using Microsoft Silverlight).

http://www.neil-online.com/nasa/

Maybe some nice e-mails to him could help to keep that great site/service alive for a long time.

Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 08:42 AM

Wow, that IS good quality... thanks for the heads-up.

Off out to buy some peanuts now. I forgot four times yestetrday!!!

Posted by: climber May 25 2008, 08:57 AM

I'm already eating right now!
Good you're there Stu, I felt was left alone for over two hours (Tman's there too now) on UMSF
GO PHOENIX and don't forget the Cacahuètes this time

Posted by: imipak May 25 2008, 09:06 AM

oDoug - I'm working on the times given on dmuller's realtime simulation page for spacecraft event time and earth received time:

EDL interface (s/c time): 23:31
touchdown(s/c time): 23:38
EDL (Earth time): 23:46
touchdown (Earth time): 23:53

Phoenix is perceiving those events, so there IS an observer[1]. So, will you really not be thinking about anything different at 23:31? Confess! ;p

[1] (semi-seriously) -- what counts as an observer?

Posted by: dmuller May 25 2008, 09:39 AM

Anything and everybody (every human, particle, planet ...) is an observer. So for Phoenix the landing happens at 23:38. So does it for Mars or any Martians watching. For the Sun the landing is perceived as happening at 23:52. Earth 23:53 etc. No piece of information can travel faster than light (not sure about the story of gravity 'information' and gravity waves, since that forms the space-time itself). So that's what relativity says.

Of course, once it happened on Mars, it will irreversably get to be perceived on Earth (unless the Universe ends in the meantime), so on a philospohical 'sphere' you can follow SCET or ERT. Or be like me, I follow both, so I can watch it twice!

Daniel

Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 09:55 AM

My head hurts...

How would you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw?

Ah. Got it now. Thanks!

Posted by: ugordan May 25 2008, 10:02 AM

I always leaned toward ERT times when it comes to things like these. Even though I acknowledged the fact that from the spacecraft point of view events happen in SCET, it is us who are observers in this case and, for us, saying the actual event took place some time before is simply philosophical and not particularly useful. We simply cannot know whether Phoenix landed safely until that information propagates to us so for all practical purposes, it doesn't even happen by then in our frame of reference.

Just as saying if the sun stopped shining right now (from its point of view), the actual event wouldn't happen for us for another 8 minutes and there is no way for us to know it will stop shining in the next 8 minutes.

Posted by: Julius May 25 2008, 10:09 AM

2353..is that GMT?

Posted by: dmuller May 25 2008, 10:43 AM

yes, 25 May 23:53 GMT is the Earth-Received landing time

Posted by: climber May 25 2008, 10:48 AM

I do NOT mind the sun stopping right now but, please, do NOT stop the Internet

Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 10:51 AM

I'm no scientist, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if the Sun DID go out it might have some repercussions for net access Climber, like, oh, I don't know, THE WORLD ENDING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I know what you mean tho... I'm looking at my PC right now thinking "Don't you DARE pull anything stupid on me today..."

Posted by: ugordan May 25 2008, 10:55 AM

Suddenly, I'm thinking of cosmic ray hits playing tag, you're it! with your DRAM memory bits

Posted by: climber May 25 2008, 11:20 AM

What the matter? THe action is on MARS today

Posted by: ugordan May 25 2008, 04:23 PM

That's awesome quality! Two questions:

1) Which NASA TV channel is that?
2) Is there a simple way to save this (or other wmv LIVE) stream to HD directly while watching? I want to have this saved for future viewing!

Posted by: MahFL May 25 2008, 06:12 PM

Thought doug was going to lock all topics and only have 1 active for the landin ?

Posted by: Tman May 25 2008, 06:31 PM

1) I think it's the public channel at all time.
2) Good question...

Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 06:37 PM

Yep, once NASA TV starts broadcasting...

Posted by: SFJCody May 25 2008, 06:55 PM

If all goes well, this will be:
1) First time since Dec 25, 1978 that three spacecraft have operated on the surface of other planets.

2) First time since Jan 14, 2005 that three spacecraft have operated on the surface of other worlds.

3) First time ever that three spacecraft have operated on the surface of the same other planet.

Posted by: Alex Chapman May 25 2008, 07:21 PM

Anyone else having problems with the 1,200k NASA feed. Yesterday it played fine but now the video keeps freezing.

I have swapped to the 500k feed and thats playing perfectly

Posted by: ugordan May 25 2008, 07:28 PM

I'm using the 500k feed as well, the 1.2M feed seems to switch down to lower bitrates constantly, causing skips and delays.

Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 07:46 PM

I watched the briefing http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/nasa/index.html, and the quality was very good. Excellent on full screen...

Posted by: paxdan May 25 2008, 08:04 PM

the 1200 is good for me

Posted by: pioneer May 25 2008, 09:31 PM

I tried doing a search for this question but did not have the patience to go through all the pages in the thread results. Isn't the area Phoenix will land once the site of a possible ocean?

Posted by: kwan3217 May 25 2008, 09:43 PM

If there was an ocean on Mars, its bed is alomst the entire northern hemisphere. Phoenix is landing on its bed. There may have been a couple of kilometers depth at the point it lands.

Unrelated note: Phoenix landing site comes into view for the final time before entry at 23:27:30 UTC SCET (23:42:52 ERT). At this point the cruise stage has already been discarded and the spacecraft has turned to entry attitude.

Posted by: Alex Chapman May 25 2008, 09:51 PM

The site is completely covered with the ejector blanket of a nearby creator. It’s the reason why there are so few rocks on the landing site. So there is no chance of coming anywhere close to the level of the theoretical sea bed.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 25 2008, 10:16 PM

Everyone is now invited to join the http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5157

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5157