[meteorite-list] Phoenix Flying True Enough to Skip One Scheduled Adjustment

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 18:03:42 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200805100103.SAA26002_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20080509a.html

Phoenix Flying True Enough to Skip One Scheduled Adjustment
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 09, 2008

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander continues on course for its May 25 arrival at
Mars. After targeting its certified landing site with a trajectory, or
flight path, correction maneuver on April 10, the spacecraft's
performance has been stable enough for the mission's operators to forgo
the scheduled opportunity for an additional trajectory correction
maneuver on May 10 and focus on the next such opportunity, on May 17.

The Phoenix navigation team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., made that recommendation after assessing the
trajectory this week and mission management accepted the recommendation
late Thursday. Phoenix has performed three flight path correction
maneuvers since its Aug. 4, 2007, launch. Besides the May 17 one, the
final opportunity for adjusting the course to hit the targeted landing
area will be in the final 24 hours before landing.

The first possible confirmation time for the spacecraft's landing on May
25 will be at 4:53 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The event would have
happened 15 minutes and 20 seconds earlier on Mars, and then radio
signals traveling at the speed of light will take 15 minutes and 20
seconds to cross the distance from Mars to Earth on that day.

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 are provided by the
Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the
universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck
Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

###
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov
Received on Fri 09 May 2008 09:03:42 PM PDT