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How did Phoenix manage to orientate itself E-W when Landing
Sandro
post Jun 4 2008, 01:20 PM
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Hi together

During the hot phase of the EDL-sequence with thrusters active, phoenix made automatically many different attitude controls. Among them was the orientation of phoenix's arm to the north. I wondered how phoenix found out his actual orientation and where north was. Since Mars does not have a strong dipol magnetic field like earth, I assume there must have been some other way to figure out the current orientation?!

I thought of maybe using the sun? But this would have been not easy at all!

Does anyone know how this was done?

Many thanks in advance!

Regards,
Sandro
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