[meteorite-list] Next Departure for Mars Stands Ready to Fly (Phoenix)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 13:09:28 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200708022009.NAA06436_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-084

Next Departure for Mars Stands Ready to Fly
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 02, 2007

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A NASA robotic explorer equipped to dig up and
analyze icy soil on Mars sits atop a 13-story tall stack of rocket
engines prepared for liftoff before sunup on Saturday.

A Delta II launch vehicle will carry the Phoenix Mars Lander into Earth
orbit and, about 90 minutes later, give it the push needed to send it to
Mars. A three-week period when planetary positions are favorable for
this launch begins with an opportunity at 2:26:34 a.m. PDT (5:26:34 a.m.
EDT) on Aug. 4. A second opportunity the same day, if needed, will come
at 3:02:59 a.m. PDT (6:02:59 a.m. EDT).

"We have worked for four years to get to this point, so we are all very
excited," said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "Our attention after launch will be
focused on flying the spacecraft to our selected landing site, preparing
for surface operations, and continuing our relentless examination and
testing for the all-important descent and landing on May 25 of next year."

Phoenix will travel 679 million kilometers (422 million miles) in an
outward arc from Earth to Mars. It will determine whether icy soil on
far northern Mars has conditions that have ever been suitable for life.

Studies of potential landing sites by spacecraft orbiting Mars led NASA
to approve a site at 68.35 degrees north latitude -- the equivalent of
northern Alaska -- and 233.0 degrees east longitude.

"Phoenix investigates the recent Odyssey discovery of near-surface ice
in the northern plains on Mars," said Phoenix Principal Investigator
Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "Our instruments are
specially designed to find evidence for periodic melting of the ice and
to assess whether this large region represents a habitable environment
for Martian microbes."

The Phoenix mission was proposed in 2002 by an international team led by
Smith. Twenty-four other teams also submitted proposals to be the first
Mars Scout mission. NASA chose Phoenix in 2003. Phoenix uses a lander
structure built for the 2001 Mars Surveyor mission, which was scaled
down before launch to an orbiter-only mission.

"The spacecraft system and software development matured early in the
program. This enabled us to thoroughly test a stable lander design over
the entire integration and test schedule period," said Ed Sedivy,
spacecraft program manager for Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith, with project management at the JPL
and development partnership at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver.
The NASA Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center and the United
Launch Alliance are responsible for the Delta II launch service.
International contributions are provided by the Canadian Space Agency;
the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the University of Copenhagen,
Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish
Meteorological Institute. JPL is a division of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena.

Additional information on Phoenix is available online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix and http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu .
Additional information on NASA's Mars program is available online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mars .

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

Media contacts: Dwayne Brown/Tabatha Thompson 202-358-1726/3895
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov, tabatha.thompson-1 at nasa.gov

George Diller 321-867-2468
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
george.h.diller at nasa.gov

Sara Hammond 520-419-8071
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond at lpl.arizona.edu

Guy Webster/D.C. Agle 818-354-6278/393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov / david.c.agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2007-084
Received on Thu 02 Aug 2007 04:09:28 PM PDT