Mars Phoenix Lander Given The Go

stlhawkeye writes "The BBC is running an article which indicates that NASA has green-lit Phoenix, the next Mars mission. NASA also has some details on the mission, which is centered around locating water on the red planet. Originally planned as part of the 2001 Mars Surveyor mission, the lander would launch in 2007. Among the more interesting plans for the mission is a new type of camera to photograph the landing site just before touchdown, and a robotic arm to claw through three feet of soil. The lander would touchdown near the polar ice cap. The mission is characterized as the first 'scout' mission for possible manned landing in the future."

More than just planned

[Anonymous Coward]

Originally part of the 2001 Mars Surveyor Program, the spacecraft that was built and tested to fly with the Mars Polar Lander mission was stored after the loss of the Surveyor. Renamed Phoenix, the craft is in preparation to finally take flight.

The damn thing was built and tested. This Phoenix is literally off the shelf.

I do wonder what elements of this design may have changed if say it had been designed in response to the recent lander successes we have had.

"Possible Manned Landing"

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

I would be quite interested to learn more details about this "possible manned landing" mentioned in the article. I would especially like to hear that NASA is putting more time, money, and effort into this than the orbiting white elephant known as the "International Space Station," and that they're working on a replacement vehicle (or even a beanpoll or orbital elevator) to replace the antiquated kludge known as the space shuttle.

When I was growing up, I expected us to have made a manned landing on Mars by now. I fear that NASA's bureauscoliocis has made that event ever-more unlikely under the current bureaucracy.

Crow T. Trollbot

Re:If they want to find water on mars...

[joncue]

That's the southern pole, the northern pole has much higher concentration of water ice. The latest theory on the reason is that the closest thing mars has to a jet stream runs from the south to the north, which evaporates the water ice and re-deposits it on the northern pole.

Here's the story:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_poles_020320.html [space.com]

Please please please

[TrevorB]

Let this lander have a "tone" system for determining status during Entry Descent and Landing (EDL). These tones are simple radio signals (256 of them in total, if I recall) that sent out simple program and error states (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 4G, Chute Deploy, Impact, etc), and also have the effect of sending back nice doppler data giving us an idea of where these landers are. They work nicely because it's an extremely basic analog signal that can be sent out even if you're wrapped up in airbags, falling at 5G with your heat shield on fire, or if you're tumbling end to end in a firey death.

I'm almost at the point of saying that retro-rocket fired landers are less reliable than their airbag repelling cousins. The airbag method has worked 3 for 3 in the past 8 years. Retrorockets have failed on the single attempt. But I don't think this is a landing technology problem. Landing on the surface of another planet is risky in the best of circumstances (Just before MER-A/B EDL'd I personally gave each of them a 50/50 chance of landing), but if your software isn't perfect, you're screwed.

Regardless, these tone style systems are critical for learning from our mistakes. They make for great TV as well... Beats waiting around for 20 minutes biting your nails. ;)