Phoenix Mars Lander

[station]

Z wyciąganiem daleko idących wnisków trzeba ostrożnie.
Pozdrawiam
-J.

Dokładnie tak jak piszesz Jarek. Opieramy się na bardzo wąskim zakresie badań i zbyt często pojawia się w tych analizach anologia ziemska. Sądzę, że wszelką wypadkową ciągu badań kolejnych misji marsjańskich bedzie można zbudować dopiero po kilkunastu latach od teraz. Nie ma się gdzie niepotrzebnie zagalopowywać z różnymi teoriami, jeśli tak naprawdę - nie jesteśmy się w stanie przyznać, że na obecnym poziomie mamy nadal zbyt małą ilość danych o przeszłości Marsa.

[ekoplaneta]

W grudniu 2017 rok Mars Reconaissance Orbiter ponownie przeleciał nad lądowiskiem Phoenixa, wykonujac przy tym zdjęcie. Możemy sobie porównać zmiany jakie zaszły w okolicach lądowiska Phoenixa prawie po dekadzie.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7066

Zdjęcie z 2008 r.:

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA22223_fig1.jpg

Zdjęcie z końca 2017 r.:

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA22223_fig2.jpg

Jak widać lądownika nikt nie ukradł mimo, że minęło 9,5 roku  ale ślady samego lądowania pokrył marsjański pył maskując nieco pamiętne wydarzenia z 2008 roku.

Tutaj ładny gif ze złożenia dwóch zdjęć:

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA22223.gif

Szkoda, że pominięto w powyższym porównaniu zdjęcie chyba z 2009 roku pokazujące lądowisko i samą sondę po upływie pierwszej dla Phoenixa marsjańskiej zimie. Wówczas okazało się, że panele słoneczne lądownika uległy uszkodzeniu.

P.S. Szkoda, że do obecnej wiadomości nie mogę załadować zdjęć z powyżej podanych linków. Ładniej wówczas by mój post się prezentował 

[ekoplaneta]

10 lat temu Phoenix wylądował na Marsie w regionie zwanym Vastitas Borealis.
Warto zajrzeć tutaj

http://www.astro4u.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=5946&page=20

by przypomnieć sobie niektórym Forumowiczom jak się przeżywało lądowanie sprzed dziesięciu lat   

Dla wspominek dodatkowo umieszczam kilka zdjęć z misji lądownika 









https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images-all.php?fileID=14622

[kanarkusmaximus]

Ale to całkiem udana konstrukcja. Kolejny typ Phoenixa też leci na Marsa.

[ekoplaneta]

A pierwszym byl Mars Polar Lander 

[kanarkusmaximus]

NASA powinna uwolnić tę konstrukcję i umożliwić innym budowę podobnych Phoenixów we własnym zakresie.

[ekoplaneta]

Przed chwilą na stronie Planetary Society przeczytałem interesujący artykuł o jednym z czołowych naukowców planetarnych ZSRR i Rosji - Slavie Linkin, który niedawno zmarł.

W artykule jest napisane, że Słava Linkin zaproponował umieszczenie na lądownikach Mała Awtomnaja Stancja z misji Mars 96 elektronicznej biblioteczki z utworami dotyczącymi Marsa. Z tego co pamiętam z lektury ,,Śniegi Olimpu" Arthura Clarke podczas tej misji na Marsa miało trafić również jego przemówienie dla przyszłych pokoleń eksploratorów Marsa. Jak wiemy nic z misji Mars 96 nie doleciało do Czerwonej Planety. Ale na szczęście marsjańska biblioteczka i przemówienie Arthura Clarke dotarło na Marsa na pokładzie lądownika Phoenix! 
Ciekawe tylko czy treść przemówienia Clarke, gdzie mówił o misji 94 przemianowano ostatecznie na Phoenixa czy też pozostało przy pierwotnym brzmieniu? W 2007 gdy startował Phoenix Clarke jeszcze żył. Może pomysłodawcy akcji razem z Arthurem zdążyli zaktualizować treść przemowy?

As interest in Mars surface mobility shifted to planetary rovers, Slava led Russian teams developing instruments and testing various concepts for Mars rovers, or Marsokhods as they were called in Russian (TPR 12:6, p.12). Slava helped lead the science planning for what became the Mars ‘96 mission and was the principal investigator for small landing stations that were included on that project. In that capacity, he invited The Planetary Society to contribute a novel outreach payload component: a mini-DVD containing works of science fiction, destined to become the first library on Mars. The literary collection, Visions of Mars, did eventually make it to the Martian surface aboard NASA’s Phoenix lander.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2019/slava-linkin-obituary.html

[ekoplaneta]

W 2012 roku MRO wykonał zdjęcie lądowiska Phoenixa po drugiej marsjańskiej zimie licząc od przybycia lądownika:

This image, taken Jan. 26, 2012, shows NASA's no-longer-active Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft after its second Martian arctic winter. The lander has the same appearance as it did after its first winter, as seen in an image from May 2010. This view is from monitoring frost patterns at the Phoenix landing site in far-northern Mars, using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.



https://www.space.com/14526-dead-mars-spacecraft-photos-spirit-phoenix.html

[ekoplaneta]

Trzynaście lat temu 4 sierpnia 2007 r. Phoenix wystartował na Marsa 

https://www.space.com/39251-on-this-day-in-space.html

[station]

https://www.space.com/14526-dead-mars-spacecraft-photos-spirit-phoenix.html

To zdjęcie obejmuje chyba nieaktywny lądownik, już bez swoich rozwijanych jak wachlarz paneli słonecznych prawda? Pamiętam, jak naukowcy dociekiwali czy na tychże panelach osadził się (suchy) lód i wskutek ciężaru ten fragment konstrukcji po prostu odłamał się od reszty lądownika.

[artpoz]

Dziś mija 14 rocznica lądowania Phoenix'a.

[Orionid]

15 lat temu, 25.05.2008, sonda wylądowała na Marsie.
Jej aktywna praca trwała tam ok. 157 dni i potwierdzono 31 lipca obecność wody.

Stephane SEBILE @spacemen1969 8:32 AM · May 25, 2023
25 mai 2008
Il y a exactement 15 ans, la sonde américaine Phoenix se posait sur la surface de Mars - Elle y travaille quelques 157 jours et confirme (31 juillet) la présence d'eau.
Elle avait décollé le 4 août 1997

https://x.com/spacemen1969/status/1661621116392165376
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/sondy/phoenix.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)

EDIT 26.06.23
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1673034560387309571

NASA Spacecraft Lands on Mars
By Kenneth Chang
May 26, 2008


Scientists working on the Phoenix Mars Lander celebrate after the spacecraft landed successfully on Mars.
Credit...Pool photo by Lawrence K. Ho, via Reuters

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft made a safe, flawless landing Sunday on Mars.

During the final, tense minutes of the descent, long stretches of quiet in the mission support room were punctuated by cheers and clapping as confirmation of crucial events like the deployment of the parachute were confirmed.

Then, at 7:53 p.m. Eastern time, Richard Kornfeld, the lead communications officer for entry, descent and landing, announced: “Touchdown signal detected.”


An image from the Phoenix spacecraft of the surface near where it landed in Mars’s polar region.
Credit...NASA

The mission controllers, wearing identical blue polo shirts made for the occasion, erupted in cheers and began hugging one another in congratulations.

“It was better than we could have possibly wished for,” said Barry Goldstein, the project manager for the mission. “We rehearsed over and over again. We rehearsed all of the problems, and none of them occurred. It was perfect, just the way we designed it.”

At 9:53 p.m., there were more cheers as confirmation came that one more critical event, the unfolding of the solar arrays, had occurred without problem. And then the first pictures arrived: black-and-white images of the solar panels, of one of the lander’s footpads and of surrounding terrain, showing the polygonal fractures caused by repeated thawing and freezing.


An image from the Phoenix spacecraft of its unfurled solar arrays. Credit...NASA

The next few days will be spent checking out the condition of the spacecraft. Then it will begin the first up-close investigation of Mars’s northern polar region. That area became a prime subject of interest for planetary scientists after NASA’s orbiting Odyssey spacecraft discovered in 2002 vast quantities of water ice lying a few inches beneath the surface in the polar regions.

Mars’s surface is currently far too cold for life to exist, but in the past, the planet’s axis might have periodically tipped over so that its north pole pointed at the sun during summer. That could have warmed the ice into liquid water.

With liquid water comes the possibility of life.

On the Phoenix, a robotic arm with a scoop will dig into the ice layer. Instruments on the spacecraft included a small oven that will heat the scooped-up dirt and ice to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Analyzing the vapors will provide information on the minerals, and that will, in turn, provide clues about whether the ice ever melted and whether this region was habitable. The mission is to last three months.

“We see Phoenix as a stepping stone to future investigations of Mars,” said Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, the principal investigator of the mission.

But the spacecraft had to get to the surface first. Mission managers sent their last instructions to it around noon Eastern time on Sunday. From there, the spacecraft operated on autopilot all the way to the surface.

During the day Sunday, the pull of Mars’s gravity accelerated the spacecraft from 6,300 miles per hour to 12,700 m.p.h. when it entered the Martian atmosphere. The friction of the atmosphere slowed the craft down by 90 percent, then a parachute provided further drag. For the last kilometer down to the surface, 12 thrusters slowed Phoenix to a velocity of 5.4 m.p.h. before it bumped onto the surface.

Phoenix set down in a very flat spot, sitting at a tilt of about three-tenths of a degree.

The landing held an extra dose of anxiety, because the Phoenix has the same basic design as NASA’s Mars Polar Lander, which crashed while landing near the south pole in 1999. The Phoenix spacecraft was originally going to go to Mars’s equatorial region as Mars Surveyor 2001, but after investigations of the Polar Lander failure turned up major flaws in the design, that mission was canceled and the almost complete Surveyor spacecraft was put into storage.

Dr. Smith proposed resurrecting the Surveyor spacecraft as the Phoenix for a new mission. Testing identified more than a dozen flaws in the lander design, and mission managers believed they had fixed the problems.

NASA’s budget for the Phoenix is $420 million, which includes testing and retrofitting the spacecraft, outfitting it with new instruments, launching and operating the mission. The Canadian Space Agency contributed $37 million for one of the instruments, a weather station. In addition, the development and construction of the original Surveyor 2001 spacecraft cost $100 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/science/26mars.html

[Orionid]

25.05.2008 o 23:38:24 UTC (odbiór sygnału na Ziemi o 23:53:44) sonda miękko wylądowała na Marsie w punkcie o przybliżonych współrzędnych 68,22°N, 234,3°E ( Vastitas Borealis).
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/sondy/phoenix.htm

28.05.2008 w ramach testów zapoczątkowano operacje dynamiczne ramienia robotycznego.

Wkrótce po lądowaniu zmierzony zakres temperatur wahał się od -30 do -80°C.

Phoenix Mars Mission

Canada's contribution

Meteorological station

Canada's contribution to Phoenix was a meteorological station (MET) that recorded the daily weather at the landing site. The weather station performed successfully throughout the mission, beginning just hours after landing. The University of Aarhus in Denmark's wind sensor, known as a "telltale," perched at the top of the MET's mast, also measured wind speed and direction and detected the presence of at least one dust devil at the landing site.

The MET had:

A vertical lidar instrument for probing the atmosphere
A mast with three temperature sensors at various heights and a wind sensor
Pressure sensor

https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/mars/phoenix/

Mars Lander Starts Moving Its Robotic Arm
By Kenneth Chang May 30, 2008


A panoramic view taken by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows the sweeping plains of the Martian polar north.
Credit...NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander has successfully lifted its robotic arm, mission managers announced Thursday.

“All of the joints are healthy, and we’re raring to go,” Matthew L. Robinson, the lead engineer for the mission’s robotic arm flight software, said at a news conference Thursday. Overcoming one of the few glitches in the mission so far, the arm was able to free itself from a protective sheaf that did not fully unwrap after landing.

The primary mission for the lander is to dig into an ice layer believed to exist a few inches beneath the surface and look for signs that this region of Mars, in the far northern plains, might have been warm and wet in the past.

Testing the arm will take a few days, and the first scoops of Martian soil are to be dug up next week.

The spacecraft also completed a 360-degree panorama, showing what Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, the principal investigator, described as a “hummocky terrain” — mostly flat with slight bumps and troughs caused by the expansion and contraction of under-surface ice.

The few rocks were small — generally about five inches in diameter, with some as wide as eight inches — and most were flat , Dr. Smith said. Curiously, the rocks appeared brighter than the soil.

The science team has started naming the rocks, drawing from fairy tales and folk legends. One Humpty-Dumpty-inspired rock was named “King’s Men,” and another “King’s Horses.” One otrough was named “Sleepy Hollow,” so two nearby rocks are now “Ichabod” after Ichabod Crane, the main character of the story, and “Headless,” the headless horseman who pursues Ichabod.

“This allows the team to have a little fun with the naming opportunities,” Dr. Smith said, “because we’re going to use as many as one or two hundred names throughout the mission, and it helps us remember what they are.”

As might be expected given the arctic location, the weather conditions are frigid. James A. Whiteway of York University in Toronto, the science team leader for the weather station that the Canadian Space Agency built for Phoenix, reported a high of minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit and a low of minus 112.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/science/space/30mars.html

Astro Info Service @aisoffice 10:53 AM · May 25, 2025
Following a 9-month journey, OTD 2008, Phoenix became the 6th US probe to successfully land on Mars. The landing was in the northern polar region of the Green Valley, Vastitas Borealis. A planned 90-day mission became 157-sols, until the advent of Martian winter that November.

https://x.com/aisoffice/status/1926562189239779356

[ekoplaneta]

Oglądałem transmisję z lądowania Phoenixa. Samo lądowanie było już po północy naszego czasu.