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Phoenix Mars Lander Declared Dead
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Nov 10, 2008 06:54 PM
from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-pix dept.
from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-pix dept.
SpuriousLogic sends in a sad note from the BBC: "NASA says its Phoenix lander on the surface of Mars has gone silent and is almost certainly dead. Engineers have not heard from the craft since Sunday 2 November when it made a brief communication with Earth. Phoenix, which landed on the planet's northern plains in May, had been struggling in the increasing cold and dark of an advancing winter. The US space agency says it will continue to try to contact the craft but does not expect to hear from it."
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Mars Rover "Spirit" In Danger 222 comments
Riding with Robots writes "Just days after announcing that the Mars Phoenix Lander has met its icy demise, NASA reports that a dust storm has left the rover Spirit on the edge of power failure. During one recent Martian day, the robotic geologist's solar array produced only 89 watt hours of energy, the lowest output by either rover in their nearly five years on Mars. Mission managers are taking steps to protect the hardy, battle-worn spacecraft, but the agency describes Spirit's status as 'vulnerable.'"
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It's not dead... (Score:5, Funny)
It will soon spring forth from the fiery planet to destroy us all! RISE PHOENIX!!! RISE!
Re:It's not dead... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It's not dead... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
P'NIX (Score:5, Funny)
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RIP (Score:4, Insightful)
The mission was scheduled to last just three months on the surface, but continued to work for more than five months.
I'll drink to that!
IBM's Power Architecture used in Lander (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:RIP (Score:5, Funny)
Opportunity: You hear about that new guy, Phoenix?
Spirit: Yeah, water ice...wonder what he'll find next.
Op: The dude's dead, yo!
Sp: What? He's only been here 5 months!
Op: I know. Lightweight. Gave some whiney excuse about 'only 3 months'.
Sp: What a wuss. I've been running on half power and 5 wheels most of this damn mission! I guess they don't make 'em like they used to.
Parent
Re:RIP (Score:5, Funny)
Beagle 2: Wazzup!
Parent
Re:RIP (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:RIP (Score:4, Funny)
Voyager: It's dark out here... so very very dark. Hum-mmmmmmmmmmm.
Parent
Re:RIP (Score:5, Funny)
It's not Phoenix's fault damnit. They gave him a red shirt at the start of the episode and we all know what that means!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oohh... this reminds me of Wall-E... :(
So sad...
Waaaall....Eeeeeeee... :'(
Re:RIP (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's only a flesh wound.
Last Transmission? (Score:5, Funny)
Did it sing "Bicycle Built for Two," slowing down and getting deeper as it ran out of power? Because that would have been awesome.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you imagine if someone had sneaked that code into it to do just that? OMG. :)
I'm waiting for someone to shoot something at the moon that colors it with some product or countries colors.
Late-Breaking News from the Council: VICTORY! (Score:5, Funny)
VICTORY!
The most Illustrious Council of Elders has declared tomorrow a planetary day of celebration. K'breel, Speaker for the Council, spake thus:
(A small group of dissidents in the Press Corps reminded the Speaker that the Invader on the Plains had begun to stir [nasa.gov], and that The Twin at the Crater was rapidly advancing to the southeast [nasa.gov] after having made an obscene gesture. They were about to inquire as to what progress had been made over the past two and a half years against these threats, but K'Breel had already torn the antenna shaft from the Arctic Invader's lifeless hulk and made a shishkebab of their gelsacs before their question could be been fully heard.)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
A bit of googling and nosing through NASA's and UofA's sites revealed the final logs:
before communications went unexpectedly silent.
Actually it did sing (Score:2)
It was the first rickroll from another planet!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I still find that scene creepy and unnerving. It's even more unnerving than the book's description (or at least how I recall it -- it's been a few years since I read it), where the modules were completely removed and floated around the room. Bowman did what he had to do, but watching the lobotomization of another thinking being is still uncomfortable.
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Re:Last Transmission? (Score:5, Informative)
Did it sing "Bicycle Built for Two", slowing down and getting deeper as it ran out of power?
I thought the tune's name was either "Daisy Daisy" or "Daisy Bell". In any case, it was used in 2001 because it was actually the first tune ever sung by a computer (the IBM 7094), in 1961. Here's an mp3 file link of that historic recording: http://audio.textfiles.com/sounds/daisy.mp3 [textfiles.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
to the current pheonix, and to to future missions. (Score:2)
The poor (Score:3, Funny)
It didnt even knew who won the elections
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No problem... (Score:5, Funny)
...you know what a Phoenix does when it dies, right?
rj
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No problem... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Difficult to catch fire while surrounded by ice and a CO2 atmosphere.
You just aren't trying hard enough ;P
Still a great achievement (Score:2)
Original story and pictures (Score:5, Informative)
More info (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the Planetary Society has done a great job following the mission, and there's an extremely detailed update [planetary.org] one of their members wrote based on a phone interview with the Phoenix project manager shortly after the last contact with Phoenix was made last week.
Here's a quick summary: Phoenix has been reducing operational tempo for several weeks. In anticipation of having too little power to run the robotic arm and inability to communicate in late November for a few weeks as Mars passes behind the sun, they hurried sample delivery to a few more TEGA ovens for analysis, but they still had one oven-load left to analyze when the dust storm hit that dropped power levels below a sustainable point. However, despite that, they had already met all of their operational objectives. The extra data would have been a bonus.
When they saw the dust storm coming, they tried to power down almost all non-essential systems, but weren't quite in time. As a result, the batteries drained completely and it "browned out." The next day, the batteries charged enough to wake up in what they call "Lazarus mode" and try communicating, but it likely missed the relay window with the orbiters. Over a couple days, they got some intermittent communications, and were hoping to be able to send instructions to properly time the wake-up for best chance at communications and best utilization of what little solar power its getting each day, but apparently that hasn't yet succeeded. They were hoping to get temperature and soil conductivity measurements periodically, and maybe even a few pictures of CO2 ice starting to cake up in the area.
It may still be in Lazarus mode, or something may have failed due to the thermal contraction of the electronics (ex: solder and circuit board material expand at different rates...too extreme of a temperature shift and things start popping apart) ending it for good. There is still some hope that Phoenix will survive the frigid temperatures and even the weight of a meter-thick layer of CO2 ice to awaken in the spring. That's what Lazarus mode was created for, but the hope of that has always been very small.
There's a really interesting tidbit about a microphone that's part of the descent camera. On a whim they tried to use it a couple weeks ago to record wind sounds, but it didn't start up. Then one of the team members had a conversation with blind man who pointed out that he'll never see a picture of Mars, so he had really been hoping the microphone would work so he could experience it through sound. That really motivated the team to try the microphone again, but unfortunately, it sounds like they didn't have a chance with that either.
I've been following this mission on a nearly daily basis since landing. It's been neat to see Phoenix in action, and no doubt a busy few months for the team. I'm sure they'll feel somewhat relieved to return to living by a 24 hour clock and have the leisure to analyze all the data and the 25,000+ pictures it returned. I'll never forget the shot [arizona.edu] Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter got of it drifting down to the surface with Heimdall Crater in the background. In my opinion, it's one of the top 10 space images ever. The MRO team even claims that if you look really close at the full size version, you can see a black-spec a few hundred pixels beneath the lander that is the just-released heat shield falling away.
Well done Phoenix.
Parent
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Two thumbs up given the circumstances. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that the planet Earth is batting only .385 on Mars missions, the extra 2 months of data makes up for it to some extent.
Since Mars does have a thin atmosphere, a probe is likely to be under far greater danger of being hit by random flying debris than on some airless hunk of rock like the Moon where only micrometeorites pose that kind of hazard.
Bye Phoenix, you gutted it out well!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? I think you have that backwards. Mars has a thin atmosphere, which means that micrometeoriods would likely be burned up before hitting the surface. On the whole a probe would have a far greater chance of being hit by random flying debris on some airless rock than on Mars.
Well maybe... (Score:4, Funny)
They should get John Edward [johnedward.net] to help out.
next spring? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm just wondering - what is gonna happen next summer? is there a chance that some stuff still works, after the CO2 ice thaws in the "spring"? or would the damage from the freezing be irriversible? what conditions are we talking about midwinter - about a meter of CO2 ice? what damage would that do?
Probably more like a metre of CO2 snow. I give Phoenix a 10% chance of waking up in 18 months time.
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Are you a rocket scientist? Because I'll give your opinion more than 10% validity if you are ;)
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Yes, the damage done by freezing is irreversible. There is a very, very, slender and against all odds hope however that the damage will be insufficient to actually completely kill the lander.
Awesome (Score:2)
This is going to sound really dorky, but I really enjoy hearing about the Mars landers. I get a kick out of getting a camera in the next room to send images to my laptop over the radio. When I was a kid, I built a WeFAX interface to my 8-bit Atari to pull weather satellite images down (I didn't have a HAM radio so couldn't actually do it, but it was cool to play around with the hardware).
Images from Mars. How frickin' cool is that? A quarter century later it still gives me this "anything is possible" feel
No problem (Score:5, Funny)
Designs for future missions (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know it's sad and all, but aren't Mars rover years like 45 human years? That guy was freakin' old when he kicked, and he went down with a fight! Martian storms really REALLY suck. Forget Kansas Toto, Mars is not for girly rovers!
What a rockin' piece of robot! Salute!
Re:Foresight? (Score:5, Interesting)
It was named Phoenix as the mission was originally scrapped after the polar lander crash. When they revived the project they renamed it Phoenix. It's also unlikely that it will be revived in the next martian summer. The reason being that where the rover is, it will be cold enough for the solar cells and other components to be destroyed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC they expect carbon dioxide to freeze onto the solar panels and break them off.