Excitement and nerves set in as Phoenix prepares for the final part of its 10-month journey to Mars and the beginning of a 3-month journey on one of the most controversial planets of our solar system. The 3 million miles that separate the Mars Lander from its target will take three days to complete, and everything so far points to a successful landing.
As everything seems to be stable, and the Lander is in perfect condition, the team in charge with Phoenix is considering if they are to do a fine tuning of its trajectory, currently 8 miles off the center of the targeted area.
The decision will be made on Saturday, but either way, Barry Goldstein, project manager of the mission, said they will continue to monitor the Lander’s trajectory throughout the night, in case they might need to intervene on the trajectory eight hours before landing.
The Mars Lander is set to enter the Martian atmosphere on May 25, at the speed of 13,000 mph, which will be reduced to 5 mph in just 7 minutes, the time scientists said it will take Phoenix to reach the surface of the planet. The landing is scheduled to take place at approximately 7:53 p.m. EDT.
The mission, which will stretch over 90 Martian days, or 92 Earth days, will start at a site in the north region of the planet, established at 68 degrees north latitude, 233 degrees east longitude, at temperatures of minus 73 C to minus 33 C (minus 100 F to minus 28 F).
It will be for the first time when a Mars mission reaches so far north, with the clear purpose of determining whether the Red Planet is a setting for past or future forms of life. The Mars Lander will examine the soil in place at the surface, at the icy layer and in between, and will take samples for analysis.
Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson said that the science team in charge of the mission has been given the last instructions at their final meeting on Tuesday, and that this week, they will be conducting a dress rehearsal before opening night on Sunday.
This mission in particular will be very challenging, considering that everyone expects Phoenix to confirm pro-Martian life theories and infirm the pessimistic approach according to which life on Mars has only “a ghost of a chance.”
Earlier this year, a study revealed that during NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity missions, they’ve uncovered what they called a “life-threatening fact” that radically diminishes the chances to prove that life on the Red Planet is possible: high concentrations of minerals, which make even microbial life impossible.
Phoenix’s mission is to hopefully prove them wrong, and establish whether conditions on the exploration site have ever been favorable to microbial life. Moreover, the Mars Lander will try to establish the presence of carbon-based elements and whether the ice ever melts here, in response to long-term climate cycles.
The team of scientists at the University of Arizona and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory take part in this mission, and receive international support from the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, the Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark, the Marx Planck Institute in Germany and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.