US probe to make perilous landing on Martian arctic
The historically less-than-50 per cent odds of success loomed heavily as NASA scientists readied for the landing of the 420-million-dollar Phoenix spacecraft near Mar's frigid north pole.
By Agencies |
WASHINGTON: The historically less-than-50 per cent odds of success loomed heavily as NASA scientists readied for the landing of the 420-million-dollar Phoenix spacecraft near Mar's frigid north pole.
"I'm a little nervous on the inside. This is not an easy thing to do," said Phoenix scientist Peter Smith yesterday of the landing planned for late on Saturday
"There's a lot of uncertainties left. Mars is always there to throw those uncertainties at us," added Doug McCuistion, Mars Exploration Program Director, of what NASA calls "the scariest seven minutes of the mission" -- the period of hyper-deceleration and descent onto the Red Planet.
Mission specialists were reviewing data to decide whether a course-correction maneuver would be needed late yesterday to keep the Phoenix on track for landing in a relatively rock-free, flat region in the Mars arctic after its 679-million-kilometer journey from Earth.
Phoenix will enter the Martian atmosphere at around 0501 IST today at about 21,000 kilometers per hour and rely on its thermal shield, then a parachute followed by a bank of pulse thrusters, to slow down to a mere eight kph ahead of touchdown on the circumpolar region known as Vastitas Borealis -- akin to northern Canada in Earth's latitude.
Phoenix will become the first spacecraft to land on the Martian arctic surface, digging into the polar ice in a new three-month mission searching for signs of life.
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"We are going to a place on the planet that is unexplored and very exciting," Smith, Phoenix principal investigator at the University of Arizona, told reporters on Saturday.Download
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