[meteorite-list] NASA Finishes Listening for Phoenix Mars Lander

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 09:36:27 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200812021736.JAA22405_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1964

NASA Finishes Listening for Phoenix Mars Lander
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
December 01, 2008

PASADENA, Calif. -- After nearly a month of daily checks to determine
whether Martian NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander would be able to communicate
again, the agency has stopped using its Mars orbiters to hail the lander
and listen for its beep.

As expected, reduced daily sunshine eventually left the solar-powered
Phoenix craft without enough energy to keep its batteries charged.

The final communication from Phoenix remains a brief signal received via
NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter on Nov. 2. The Phoenix lander operated for
two overtime months after achieving its science goals during its
original three-month mission. It landed on a Martian arctic plain on May
25.

"The variability of the Martian weather was a contributing factor to our
loss of communications, and we were hoping that another variation in
weather might give us an opportunity to contact the lander again," said
Phoenix Mission Manager Chris Lewicki of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The end of efforts to listen for Phoenix with Odyssey and NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter had been planned for the start of solar
conjunction, when communications between Earth and Mars-orbiting
spacecraft are minimized for a few weeks. That period, when the sun is
close to the line between Earth and Mars, has begun and will last until
mid-December.

The last attempt to listen for a signal from Phoenix was when Odyssey
passed overhead at 3:49 p.m. PST Saturday, Nov. 29 (4:26 p.m. local Mars
solar time on the 182nd Martian day, or sol, since Phoenix landed). Nov.
29 was selected weeks ago as the final date for relay monitoring of
Phoenix because it provided several weeks to the chance to confirm the
fate of the lander, and it coincided with the beginning of solar
conjunction operations for the orbiters. When they come out of the
conjunction period, weather on far-northern Mars will be far colder, and
the declining sunshine will have ruled out any chance of hearing from
Phoenix.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona,
Tucson, with project management at JPL and development partnership at
Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the
Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the
universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck
Institute in Germany; the Finnish Meteorological Institute; and Imperial
College, London. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena
manages JPL for NASA.

Media contact: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.Webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2008-223
Received on Tue 02 Dec 2008 12:36:27 PM PST