[meteorite-list] NASA's Next Mars Spacecraft Crosses the Mississippi (Phoenix)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 17:23:30 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200705100023.RAA04986_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-054

NASA's Next Mars Spacecraft Crosses the Mississippi
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 08, 2007

A U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo aircraft carried NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander
spacecraft Monday, May 7, from Colorado to Florida, where Phoenix will
start a much longer trip in August.

After launch, Phoenix will land on a Martian arctic plain next spring.
It will use a robotic digging arm and other instruments to determine
whether the soil environment just beneath the surface could have been a
favorable habitat for microbial life. Studies from orbit suggest that
within arm's reach of the surface, the soil holds frozen water.

"This is a critical milestone for our mission," said Peter Smith of the
University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for Phoenix. "Our
expert engineering team has completed assembly and testing of the
spacecraft. The testing shows our instruments are capable of meeting the
high-level requirements for the mission."

Workers have been assembling and testing the spacecraft for more than a
year in Denver. "We're excited to be going back to Mars," said Ed
Sedivy, Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co.,
Denver. "Assembly, integration and testing of the spacecraft have gone
very well. We delivered Phoenix stowed inside its back shell and it will
stay in that configuration until it lands softly on Mars."

A Delta II launch vehicle will start Phoenix on its longer trip from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The earliest possible launch time
will be Aug. 3, at 5:35 a.m. EDT. Opportunities for energy-efficient
launches to Mars come about every two years. Orbital geometries of Mars
and Earth make this year particularly favorable for sending a lander to
far-northern Mars to arrive when sunshine is at a maximum there.

"The arctic plains are the right place for the next step in Mars
exploration, and this is the right time to go there," said Leslie
Tamppari, Phoenix project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. "We expect to touch Martian ice for the first time, a
real leap in NASA's follow-the-water strategy. The lander needs solar
energy, and we will arrive for a three-month prime mission right at the
end of northern Mars' spring."

Phoenix will be prepared for launch in a payload processing facility at
NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The first checkout activity will
be a spin-balance test May 10 and 11. This will be followed on May 15 by
installation of the heat shield and then a separation test. The next
major milestones, during the third week of May, will be a landing radar
integration test and launch system verification test. The last week of
May will include an entry, descent and landing system verification test,
followed by a guidance navigation and control test.

The rocket that will launch Phoenix is a Delta II 7925, manufactured by
United Launch Alliance, Denver. The first stage is scheduled to be
hoisted into the launcher of Pad 17-A at Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station the third week of June. Nine strap-on solid rocket boosters will
then be raised and attached. The second stage, which burns hypergolic
propellants, will be hoisted atop the first stage the first week of
July. The fairing, which surrounds the spacecraft, will then be hoisted
into the clean room of the mobile service tower.

Next, engineers will perform several tests of the Delta II. In mid-July,
as a leak check, the first stage will be loaded with liquid oxygen
during a simulated countdown. The next day, a simulated flight test will
be performed, simulating the vehicle?s post-liftoff flight events
without fuel aboard. The electrical and mechanical systems of the entire
Delta II will be exercised during this test. Once the Phoenix payload is
placed atop the launch vehicle in the third week of July, a major test
will be conducted: an integrated test of the Delta II and Phoenix
working together. This will be a combined minus count and plus count,
simulating all events as they will take place on launch day, but without
propellants aboard the vehicle. Finally, one week before launch, the
Delta II payload fairing will be installed around the Phoenix lander.

The NASA Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center and the
United Launch Alliance are responsible for the launch of the Delta II.

Phoenix is the first mission of NASA's Mars Scout Program of
competitively proposed, relatively low-cost missions to Mars. Selected
in 2003, Phoenix saves expense by using a lander structure and some
other components originally built for a 2001 mission that was canceled
while in development. Smith of the University of Arizona leads the
Phoenix mission, with project management at JPL and development
partnership at Lockheed Martin. 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 about Phoenix is available online at
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

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

Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

George Diller 321-867-2468
NASA Kennedy Space Center

Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson

Gary Napier 303-971-4012
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver

2007-054
Received on Wed 09 May 2007 08:23:30 PM PDT