Posted on 05/25/2008 5:04:44 PM PDT by libh8er
05.25.08
Brent Shockley 4:53 pm Touchdown detected!! We're on the surface of Mars and there is celebration in Mission Control!!
4:50 pm Parachute deploy detected! Heat shield deploy detected! Radar ground lock detected!
4:48 pm Odyssey has maintained a signal from Phoenix through the period of peak heating when we might have experienced a loss of communications due to plasma blackout.
4:45 pm Phoenix has now entered the atmosphere. We expect possible plasma blackout in about a minute. Phoenix is less than three minutes to parachute deploy and less than seven minutes to touchdown.
4:39 pm We have now verified a successful cruise stage separation and turn to entry. The Phoenix UHF signal is also being picked up by Mars Odyssey. We're now less than six minutes from entry, at which point events will happen in rapid succession. Less than a minute after entry, Phoenix will begin heating to the point of plasma blackout due to the friction created by the atmosphere, during which we may lose communication briefly. Phoenix will then come out of plasma blackout about two minutes later. Over the four minutes following that, Phoenix will deploy its parachute, heat shield, lander legs, and then hopefully come to a soft landing on Mars.
4:29 pm The Mission Manager, Joe Guinn, has just announced that we should all be at our stations in preparation to bid farewell to our cruise stage, which has provided us an excellent trip to Mars. Cruise stage separation is in eight minutes.
4:18 pm We've now confirmed completion of the successful pressurization of the descent engines. This is a critical event that is now behind us. We're expecting cruise stage separation in less than twenty minutes.
4:10 pm There has been a request for clarification regarding the EDL timeline. The timeline posted below is what we refer to as the "Earth Receive Time." This is the time when we get the signal here in Mission Control. Since it takes fifteen minutes for a signal to get from Mars to Earth, all the EDL events occur about fifteen minutes prior to the data we received confirming that these events happened. We've also just received confirmation that Odyssey has completed a slew in preparation for relay operations during EDL. Also, it was just announced that the peanuts are being opened and distributed here in Mission Control. This is a JPL tradition that goes back to the Ranger missions to the moon in the sixties.
4:07 pm For those of you watching NASA TV, you're seeing periodic shots of Mission Control in between and during interviews. From where I sit, and what your probably can't see, are the rooms surrounding Mission Control, which are also full of people. Two of the four walls are glass windows, opening to to the "dark room" from which Gay Yee Hill is broadcasting on NASA TV, as well as another conference room. I can also see a viewing gallery above the "dark room" which is also full of people. Everyone is excited and you can feel a nervous tension building. Some folks in Mission Control are even talking via cell phones through the glass as they wish each other luck.
3:35 pm It's great to see so many people following along in the comments. We are currently receiving real-time data from the spacecraft via the Deep Space Network. In fact, we had near continuous coverage for the last couple weeks in order to keep a careful eye on the spacecraft status. Some of you may notice from the live shot on NASA TV a green and black chart on the wall. This chart shows our Doppler shift as a result of the increase in speed of our spacecraft due to the Mars "gravity well." As get closer and closer to Mars, we pick up speed due to gravity. We enter the atmosphere at over 12,000 miles per hour, relative to Mars. We are now about an hour from EDL.
All true, but America actually did this over 30 years ago:
Viking Mars Lander Program 1976
I'm very glad the Mars program is getting active again...
Bullseye. Great news! Is this a great country or what? :)
How's this one? America's Viking Mars Lander took this in 1976! Full color!
Today's achievement is great stuff! But let's put this in perspective -- we were on track to Mars 30 years ago until the manned program (mainly the Shuttle) took all the money...
The Mars icecaps, thought to be frozen CO2, have been melting due to Global Warming and the increase in solar energy is the primary cause.
How do I know? Marvin assured me that his vehicle is a hybrid!
Wow!
hum. Looks just like ANWAR and might be cheaper to drill.
Nope, America soft-landed spacecraft on Mars 30 years ago (the Viking Mars Lander Program, 1976), and sent back full-color pictures (look upthread a few comments).
And you want to see the Program Mission Patch/Insignia? Check this out:
A freakin' "male" symbol! Gotta love it!!
Not by “soft” landing. The last was with NASA’s version of bubble wrap. This one was by parachute and thrusters. Absolutely amazing!!!!
I think you're thinking of the Mars rovers of the last decade. As far as I know, the Viking lander was a soft landing (this is from the Wikipedia page):
Propulsion was provided for deorbit by a monopropellant hydrazine (N2H4) rocket with 12 nozzles arranged in four clusters of three that provided 32 N thrust, giving a delta-V of 180 m/s. These nozzles also acted as the control thrusters for translation and rotation of the lander. Terminal descent and landing was achieved by three (one affixed on each long side of the base, separated by 120 degrees) monopropellant hydrazine engines. The engines had 18 nozzles to disperse the exhaust and minimize effects on the ground and were throttleable from 276 N to 2667 N. The hydrazine was purified to prevent contamination of the Martian surface. The lander carried 85 kg of propellant at launch, contained in two spherical titanium tanks mounted on opposite sides of the lander beneath the RTG windscreens, giving a total launch mass of 657 kg. Control was achieved through the use of an inertial reference unit, four gyros, an aerodecelerator, a radar altimeter, a terminal descent and landing radar, and the control thrusters.You wouldn't need all that descent control gear if you planned to merely bounce. I'm still looking for a definitive reference on the NASA site. But my recollection from 1976 was that it was a controlled thruster landing.
I think it's funny as hell that nobody wants to remember that we're simply picking up a program we dropped and ignored for 30 years...
Well, that’s just the symbol for Mars. Nice coincidence, but simply shows that they weren’t tough enough to send a lander to Venus. ;)
About 2 a.m. July 20, 1976, the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and began its hazardous descent to the surface. Plunging through the thin Martian atmosphere at nearly 10,000 miles per hour, the lander was protected by a heat-shielding aeroshell.I think it's a riot that the described the same "19 minutes of agony" as the lander descended to the surface. The more things change...At about 19,000 feet, a large parachute was deployed, slowing the hurtling spacecraft. At 4,000 feet, the parachute and aeroshell were released and rockets fired, further slowing the lander's descent to just six miles per hour.
For 19 agonizing minutes -- the time it takes a radio signal to travel to Earth from Mars -- the Viking team held their collective breath and waited for confirmation that the lander was down safely and was functioning.
"We got telemetry from the lander all the way down close to the surface, so we knew that the parachute had worked," said Martin. "We knew the thrusters had worked. We knew the guidance system was working and that the radar was working. But there was a period of those 19 minutes when we didn't know whether the lander landed successfully. That was nail-biting."
It was finally confirmed -- the Viking 1 lander had made it! "The excitement was overwhelming!" said Young. "People were hugging each other, jumping up and down -- doing all those things you do when an extraordinary event has taken place."
Viking 1 lander first image from Mars surfaceImage Right: This image, taken by the Viking 1 lander shortly after it touched down on Mars July 20, 1976, is the first photograph ever taken from the surface of Mars. Part of footpad #2 can be seen in the lower right corner, with sand and dust in the center of it, probably deposited during landing. Credit: NASA
Immediately after touchdown, the lander's camera took its first picture and relayed the historic image back to Earth. That first picture was of the lander's foot -- to see how far it had sunk into the Martian surface. "And we couldn't have asked for anything better," said Martin. "That picture was really worth a thousand words."
The Viking team repeated this gut-wrenching process with Viking 2, which settled solidly on Martian soil Sept. 3, 1976.
Yeah, but these days somebody would doubtless object that it was sexist... *sigh*
> ... but simply shows that they weren’t tough enough to send a lander to Venus. ;)
Actually we did get a lander (of sorts, actually four hard-landing probes) on Venus, in 1978 (the Pioneer Venus 2 series):
But the Russians were much more active about Venus -- they sent dozens of missions, most unsuccessful. But they put a soft-lander on Venus in 1972!:Pioneer Venus 2 (Pioneer Venus Multiprobe)
Four successful Venus probes (NASA)
Launch: August 8, 1978
Venus arrival: December 9, 1978Pioneer Venus 2 consisted of four separate atmospheric probes; one large probe 1.5 meters in diameter, which deployed a parachute to slow its descent, and three small probes (0.8 meters or 2.6 feet across) which plunged straight through the atmosphere. The large probe was released from the spacecraft bus on November 16, 1978. The three smaller probes were released four days later. All of the probes arrived at Venus on December 9, 1978. Each probe took atmospheric measurements as they descended through the cloud layer. One of the probes survived to transmit data for over an hour after it impacted with the surface. The spacecraft bus that carried the probes also had instruments and made measurements in Venus’ uppermost atmosphere before burning up.
Venera 8I don't know if the US ever got a successful lander on Venus. Seems to me we did, but I can't find it...Successful Venus lander (USSR)
Launch: March 27, 1972
Venus landing: July 22, 1972Upon Venus arrival Venera 8 used aerobraking to decelerate, and then deployed a parachute. A refrigeration unit cooled the spacecraft's components, protecting them from the intense heat as the lander descended to the surface. Once on the ground, the spacecraft transmitted data for 50 minutes, confirming a very high surface temperature and crushing atmospheric pressure. It also measured the light level on Venus’ surface and found it suitable for surface photography, setting the stage for the images to be returned by Venera 9, 10, 13, and 14.
Amazing indeed!
It landed on the beach in Galveston?
After reading the earlier comment, I coouldn’t conceive of a Mission Control without at least one Asian. Probably lots behind the scenes. In fact, possibly a majority of Asians behind the scenes.
a version with a pic
LOL!
are you speaking about “vger”? from star trek move?
No, I'm speaking about the NASA project Viking, a Mars Orbiter/Lander that arrived at Mars in 1976 and did pretty much what today's successful Mars landing did.
What I was pointing out was that today's wonderful achievement is not the unique "first time" event that the media is making it. We actually did all this 30 years ago.
It amazes me how people forget...
Most “scientists” are bottle washers and button sorters.
LAZARUS LONG
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