If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.
This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.
As I’ve said before, there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. My mission lasted five months instead of three, and I’m content knowing that I worked hard and accomplished great things during that time. My work here is done, but I leave behind a legacy of images and data.
In that sense, you haven’t heard the end of me. Scientists will be releasing findings based on my data for months, possibly years, to come and today’s children will read of my discoveries in their textbooks. Engineers will use my experience during landing and surface operations to aid in designing future robotic missions.
But for now, it’s time for me to hunker down and brave what will be a long and cold autumn and winter. Temperatures should reach -199F (-128C) and a polar cap of carbon dioxide ice will envelop me in an icy tomb.
Seasons on Mars last about twice as long as seasons on Earth, so if you’re wondering when the next Martian spring in the northern hemisphere begins, it’s one Earth-year away—October 27, 2009. The next Martian summer solstice, when maximum sunlight would hit my solar arrays, falls on May 13, 2010.
That’s a long time away. And it’s one of the reasons there isn’t much hope that I’ll ever contact home again.
For my mission teams on Earth, I bid a special farewell and thank you. For the thousands of you who joined me on this journey with your correspondence, I will miss you dearly. I hope you’ll look to my kindred robotic explorers as they seek to further humankind’s quest to learn and understand our place in the universe. The rovers, Spirit and Opportunity (@MarsRovers), are still operating in their sun belt locations closer to the Martian equator; Cassini (@CassiniSaturn) is sailing around Saturn and its rings; and the Mars Science Laboratory (@MarsScienceLab)—the biggest rover ever built for launch to another planet—is being carefully pieced together for launch next year.
My mission team has promised to update my Twitter feed as more of my science discoveries are announced. If I’m lucky, perhaps one of the orbiters will snap a photo of me when spring comes around.
So long Earth. I’ll be here to greet the next explorers to arrive, be they robot or human.
It’s been a great pleasure to have Mars Phoenix guest blogging for us, reminiscing back on a successful mission via its personality conjurer, the great Veronica McGregor at JPL—maintainer of Phoenix’s famous Twitter feed. Just as Doug McCuistion from NASA said on the news conference today, it’s certainly more of an Irish wake than a funeral today. We’re drinking to you tonight, little buddy.
( Source : Gizmodo )
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The phenomenally popular Mars Phoenix Lander mission has officially come to an end.
Originally slated for a mere 90 days near the Martian north pole, clever NASA power engineers kept the Lander doing science for nearly two months beyond that goal. But now mission officials are certain: The lander has run out of power
for its internal heater and is presumed to be frozen on the arctic
plain.
“At this time, we’re pretty convinced that the vehicle is no longer available for us to use,” said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We’re ceasing operations and declaring an end to mission operations at this point.”
As late as last week, the team was still trying to eke a few more experiments out of the robotic lander, even as the declining amount of solar energy in the pole area made their task more difficult.
The mission’s legacy, however, will not be defined by its longevity so much as by its problem-light successes and legions of fans. Driven by a clever social media strategy that built a huge Twitter following, the NASA mission struck a chord with space lovers, who watched with rapt attention as the lander made a picture-perfect landing and proceeded to become the first human spacecraft to “taste” Martian water.
“If we’re successful, this mission will be remembered for being the first to do direct analysis of ice or water on the surface of Mars,” predicted NASA’s Mike Gross, who engineered the mission’s scientific instrumentation, back in May.
Indeed, Phoenix primary investigator, Peter Smith, led off his eulogy for the Lander noting that his team discovered ice, before recounting the mission’s success measuring Martian weather and finding perchlorate, a known energy source for some microbes on Earth.
“It’s been a great mission, a highlight of my life,” Smith said.
It will take months to analyze the 25,000 photographs and the data from the dozens of experiments that the Lander conducted over the last several months, but the mission is already seen as a major success for relatively cheap robotic missions. At $480 million, the Phoenix lander cost about as much as a single Shuttle mission.
In fact, the mission’s biggest failure — not finding evidence of life — doesn’t have much to do with the execution of the mission so much as the Red Planet itself.
“We’ve seen nutrients and energy sources,” Smith said. “That leads to the question: Is this a habitable zone?”
But, just like the mission, Smith left the ultimate question of extraterrestrial life unanswered, saying just that his team needed time to go back to their labs and examine the data from the mission in greater detail.
@MarsPhoenix, the lively voice of the lander, sent her last message six minutes ago.
“01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000 <3,” she Tweeted.
That’s binary for “Triumph,” and the herald of a new digital-savvy era for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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“Veni, vidi, fodi.”Graham Vosloo’s winning Twitter-style epitaph for @MarsPhoenix |
(Source: Wired )
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Great work Mar Phoenix for bringing all the usefulness of technology to us today! May we have a happy funeral!
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Jeremy
