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.
GRRRREAT news! GRRRREAT thread! FReeper humor bump! Thanks for the ping, neverdem.
America’s finest BUMP!
USA forever!!!!
ping
“I am truly sorry for you. Don’t worry Nancy will still find a way to fund most of the massive Liberal boondoggles she promised.”
Why do you feel sorry for me ... I’m just asking a question? Most of these past NASA missions have been nothing but boondoggles. These types of missions remind me of the “bridge to nowhere” that was almost built.
How about that billion dollar space project be put to better use funding the VA! Put that in your friggen pipe and smoke it!
I’ve traveled the North Slope and visited the ANWAR. I hereby volunteer for the first Mars Mission.
spaceflightnow.com
1855 GMT (2:55 p.m. EDT)
After being folded up on Earth a year ago, the Phoenix spacecraft’s robot arm finally got to move Wednesday as flight controllers began the process of unstowing the scoop-laden appendage that will dig up samples of the frozen martian terrain for study.
Flexing its wrist to free one restraint, the elbow lifted the forearm from a second restraint and then the 7.7-foot-long arm raised above its cradle that had protected the critical device during the rigors of launch last summer and Sunday night’s descent onto the arctic plains of Mars.
Did they do that?
Got to wonder. Still it’s not like sending a map to our home planet out on Voyager for who knows what interplanetary agents with cookbooks to find.
But this once tickled me. If someone else has the technology to get to Mars, would they stop exploring, not check out the pretty blue ball, while trying to figure out what a dvd is instead?
NASA has a couple ‘send your name into space’ signups I know of. So I put my name on their webpage form and my name will be on one or more of these missions. Who knows, maybe a NASA scout will show up at my door selling cookies.
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