The Phoenix Mission derives its name from a mythical bird which upon detecting its nearness to the throes of death would then allow itself to be consumed by fire. This creature would then undergo its resurrection from the ashes resulting from that act. It seemed only fitting for the program to have been named after such a creature for a number of reasons.
Lisa Chu-Thielbar discusses in her article “The Other Phoenix” that the Mars Polar Lander’s untimely crash onto the arctic region of Mars in 1999 resulted to a lot of hardware being left by the program.The Phoenix Mission thus came about as the rebirth of the Mars Polar Lander through the use of the instruments from this past project, aside from those obtained from the Mars Surveyor Lander of 2001. It became the first mission under NASA’s Scout Program, and was sent off amidst rekindled hopes of making significant scientific discoveries in the red planet (Space. com).
The succeeding sections will discuss the specific objectives of the mission, significant details during its inception, and the current developments in this remarkable undertaking.Mission Objectives The “study of water in all its phases”, and to “search for evidence of habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary” were listed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website as the two Phoenix Mission objectives. These support the four science goals of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program which are to 1) determine whether life ever arose on Mars, 2) characterize the climate of Mars, 3) characterize the geology of Mars, and to 4) prepare for human exploration (Nasa. ov).The site goes on to mention that the interaction existing between the gaseous and solid states of water at the atmosphere and around the surface of Mars respectively, is believed to have a significant effect on the climate and weather of the planet. Although water in its liquid form does not exist on Mars’ surface, past missions on the planet indicated the possibility of flowing water in several areas billions of years ago.
By collecting meteorological and geological data in the arctic area of Mars, Phoenix will then enable scientists to extrapolate past and future trends in the planet’s weather systems and the arctic zone’s development. Phoenix’s second objective is to ascertain whether areas exist in Mars that are suitable for life. The propensity of life to exist even in the most extreme conditions is exhibited in cases such as bacterial spores undergoing a dormant stage. When favorable circumstances are present, these bacteria would then end their dormancy.The periodic wobbling of Mars initiates the existence of water in liquid form during transitory periods every 100,000 years with this situation offering the possibility of life existing during that time (Nasa.
gov). Project History Inbar, in his article “The Rise of the Phoenix” in The Future of Things website, documents the significant events leading to the inception of the Phoenix Mission through his interview with Dr. Chris McKay, a scientist who works for the NASA Ames Research Center.Dr. McKay recalled how a lander mission was being conceptualized for launch in 2001 by using a duplicate of the Mars Polar Lander sometime during the ‘90s. This lander was to carry instruments that could help analyze the suitability of human exploration in the planet.
The planned mission for 2001 was however, scrapped because of the Polar Lander crash in 1998, which insinuated that the same design might once again prove to be catastrophic. When 2002 came, the NASA started to gather ideas for proposed scouting missions, and promised to provide the requisite seed funding for worthy ideas.Dr. McKay together with Carol Stoker, thought of using the lander concept of 2001 and called the proposed mission “Ameba”.
At that point, Dr. McKay was the Principal Investigator, Peter Smith and Mike Hecht were Co-Investigators, and the NASA Ames Research Center became the lead institution which would manage the mission. Speculations grew that NASA would “never let the 2001 lander fly” during that time. Their group eventually was not selected for seed funding, but they were able to draw support from NASA Ames in developing an adequate proposal for the real Scout Program competition.
The choice of having the NASA Ames Research Center as the lead institution went against the proposal, as NASA seemed to favor the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for managing missions. Dr. McKay and Dr. Stoker had a conversation where they came to an agreement that making the JPL the managing institution and assigning a qualified and experienced member of the original 2001 lander team would bolster the chances of the proposal to be chosen.
Dr. McKay went on to justify the selection of Peter Smith of the University of Arizona as Principal Investigator: “Peter Smith was the obvious choice.We both know Peter well and we just called him up and had a three-way teleconference, and Peter agreed to be the P. I. Peter did several important things that made the proposal successful: He steered the science rationale into line with the selection criterion combining parts of the 2001 and 1998 landers, he worked effectively with the instrument teams and JPL, and he presented the mission to HQ.
The rest, as they say, is history” (Tfot. info). Mission Operations and Current DevelopmentsAccording to the Phoenix Mission website for Arizona University, the mission drew forth an alliance of the government, academe and industry in the United States as well as other parts of the world. The academe includes the University of Arizona as represented by the Principal Investigator Peter H.
Smith, who would head basic operations and handling of scientific instruments to be used. Project management as well as mission design and control would be placed under NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.As for the private sector or industry, it would have Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colorado as its representative, which will be tasked with building and testing the craft. The Canadian Space Agency will provide a meteorological station for the craft, while other international contributions would come from the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, the Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, as well as the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
Other co-investigators are also involved in the project.JR Minkel writing for the Scientific American website, mentioned the inherent risks and envisioned modes of operation for the Phoenix Mission. He noted the high probability of failure in landing as roughly only 40 percent of past missions made it through successfully. The safe entry of the rovers exploring the equatorial region of Mars in 2004 however, provided the needed encouragement to continue with further missions.
After having its exact landing location plotted through data obtained from the Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) data, Phoenix was launched successfully on August 4, 2007.Aside from shutting itself down upon getting struck by a cosmic ray as it was programmed to do, Phoenix’s journey to Mars remained relatively uneventful. After a risky landing sequence, Phoenix would stop communications for an hour and a half to set up its solar panels and power up. It will then be able to transmit images of its landing site afterwards. During the Phoenix landing sequence, samples of the dust which would be disturbed during the maneuver would be collected.
If conditions are favorable, excavating the top soil will be attempted 48 hours later.This will be accomplished initially through scraping, and then drilling the sample if the soil is too hard. Equipment such as ovens and microscopes inside Phoenix would help in determining the presence of water and other important compounds (Sciam. com). The most recent updates from the University of Arizona website had the Mars Phoenix Lander transmitting pictures of itself after a successful descent.
Solar arrays which would be the source of energy for the Lander, as well as the camera and weather station masts were put in their proper place.The performance of the robotic arm which will be used in obtaining the soil samples is also a highly-anticipated event for the Mission (Phoenix. lpl. arizona. edu). With personnel involved in the project along with many other people around the world eagerly awaiting the events soon to unfold, Phoenix had at least ensured its success in one avenue.
It had once again proven that mankind possesses a remarkable capability through the use of his ingenuity and persistence, to convert what had amounted to a failure, to what is likely to become an unprecedented success.
