schneiderism

The Phoenix Lander on Mars has not been heard from in nearly two weeks. It was originally designed to last for about 90 days, but it lasted for over 5 months delivering to us a treasure trove of images and information from its landing spot on the surface of Mars. The loss of contact with the robotic explorer is due primarily to weather conditions at its location, which have been steadily worsening. At the same time the sunlight available to recharge its batteries has been lessening each day as the sun gets lower in the Martian sky. Officially, it is the position of the Phoenix team that the mission is now complete, though mission control will continue to listen for any signs that Phoenix is still operational.  However, it does not appear there is much hope this is the case. While the Phoenix Lander’s mission of collecting data from Mars appears to be finished, the mission of reviewing, interpreting, and applying the enormous volume of information from Phoenix continues apace, and will continue well into the future given the volume of data collected. Phoenix was an impressive step forward in deepening our knowledge and understanding of Mars, and it was a mission successful beyond everyone’s expectation.

Mars Phoenix will be especially memorable for me, as not only have I written about Mars several times, but I also followed the Mars Phoenix mission very closely. I followed Mars Phoenix on Twitter, getting daily insights into what the robotic explorer was up to. I learned of the mission’s discovery of water ice on Mars via Twitter, and subscribed to the NASA image feeds to be among the first to see what incredible images Phoenix was capturing for us. The Mars Phoenix mission was an excellent exercise by NASA in involving all of us in the great work and exploration that is being done. Mars Phoenix helped us to feel as though we were part of the mission.