SPACE

[planetoftheclams]

Good call.

[axel000]

Well the Phoenix lander is just under two days away from landing on Mars, I really hope this one sticks the landing. The last rocket assisted landing ended up in a small crater That was the Mars Polar Lander, the only other probe also dispatched to a polar region of Mars looking for ice. We can only hope.

Should be live coverage on NASA tv at nasa.gov this Sunday, here is the schedule of events from Nasa. All times are US PST.

-- Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity (TCM6X), 8:46 a.m.

-- News briefing, noon

-- Begin non-commentary live television feed from JPL control room, 3 p.m.

-- Begin commentated live television feed from JPL control room, 3:30 p.m.

-- Propulsion system pressurization, 4:16 p.m.

-- Begin "bent-pipe" relay (continuous transmission of Phoenix data as it is received) through NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft to Goldstone, Calif., Deep Space Network station, 4:38 p.m.

-- Green Bank, W. Va., radio telescope listening for direct UHF from Phoenix, 4:38 p.m.

-- Cruise stage separates, 4:39 p.m.

-- Spacecraft turns to attitude for atmospheric entry, 4:40 p.m.

-- Spacecraft enters atmosphere, 4:46:33 p.m.

-- Likely blackout period as hot plasma surrounds spacecraft, 4:47 through 4:49 p.m.

-- Parachute deploys, 4:50:15 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.

-- Heat shield jettisoned, 4:50:30 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.

-- Legs deploy, 4:50:40 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.

- Radar activated, 4:51:30 p.m.

-- Lander separates from backshell, 4:53:09 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.

-- Transmission gap during switch to helix antenna 4:53:08 to 4:53:14 p.m.

-- Descent thrusters throttle up, 4:53:12 p.m.

-- Constant-velocity phase starts, 4:53:34 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.

-- Touchdown, 4:53:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.

-- Lander radio off 4:54:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.

-- Begin opening solar arrays (during radio silence) 5:13 p.m.

-- Begin NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:28 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.

-- Begin Europe's Mars Express spacecraft playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:30 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.
-- Post-landing poll of subsystem teams about spacecraft status, 5:30 p.m.

-- Mars Odyssey "bent-pipe" relay of transmission from Phoenix, with engineering data and possibly including first images, 6:43 to 7:02 p.m. Data could take up to about 30 additional minutes in pipeline before being accessible. If all goes well, live television feed from control room may show first images as they are received. The first images to be taken after landing will be of solar arrays, to check deployment status.

-- News briefing, 9 p.m.

[axel000]

Interesting piece over at wired.com showing some of the behind the scenes stuff on the recieving end of this mission. Interesting, if brief, read.

[Stone]

Should be commentary up in about a half-hour.

Go little Phoenix!

Stone

[Firefox]

Where?

[Stone]

I was being dense with the timezones. Ignore me

Stone

[Firefox]

Phew, that's alright then. I looked at Nasa TV and they just showing reruns of a bloke packing plants into cartons on the space station.

So where and when is a good time and place to watch the landing?

[Istar]

Right now, PST is 7 hours behind GMT, and 8 beind BST. It's 9.55am here in London, which means it's 1.55am in, er, wherever Phoenix mission control is.

Thus, if their commentary starts at 8.46am PST, it'll be 4.46pm BST. So nothing doing until teatime today, basically. Just add 8 to any PST-quoted time in the schedule.

And NASA usually either have feeds like this, or a link to a mission-specific page which does:

http://www.nasa.gov/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/ <-- countdown timer here says just under 15 hours to touchdown (at time of writing)
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasti ... 80516.html <-- podcasts and transcripts

[spinlizard]

Nasa TV is covering the approach now.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Nothing much happening yet. Probe is due to touch down just before midnight GMT I believe.

[Firefox]

I'm watching it on my EeePc, to maximise the spacecraft->spacecraft->spacecraft->Earth->NASA->internet->wifi->laptopbetterthantheonein2010 fuck-me-I-am-living-in-teh-future feeling.

"Gay Yee Hill". There's got to be a double-entendre in there somewhere...

[Firefox]

Touchdown!

[spinlizard]

[Darkflame]

That. Was. Fantasic.

[Firefox]

Nice piccies coming back: Solar panels deployed, a picture of the landscape, and a view down to show one of the lander's feet firmly planted.

[axel000]

*phew*