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Posted by baalke on August 13, 2007, 11:19 am
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-088
NASA's Mars-Bound Phoenix Adjusts Course Successfully
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 10, 2007
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander today accomplished the first and largest of
six
course corrections planned during the spacecraft's flight from Earth
to Mars.
Phoenix left Earth Aug. 4, bound for a challenging touchdown on May
25, 2008,
at a site farther north than any previous Mars landing. It will
robotically
dig to underground ice and run laboratory tests assessing whether the
site
could ever have been hospitable to microbial life.
Phoenix today is traveling at about 33,180 meters per second (74,200
miles
per hour) in relation to the sun. The first trajectory-correction
maneuver
was calculated to tweak the velocity by about 18.5 meters per second
(41
miles per hour). The spacecraft fired its four mid-size thrusters for
three
minutes and 17 seconds to adjust its trajectory.
"All the subsystems are functioning as expected with few deviations
from
predicted performance," said Joe Guinn, Phoenix mission system manager
at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Key activities in the next few weeks will include checkouts of
science
instruments, radar and the communication system that will be used
during and
after the landing.
The second trajectory-correction maneuver is planned for mid-October.
"These
first two together take out the bias intentionally put in at launch,"
said
JPL's Brian Portock, Phoenix navigation team chief. Without the
correction
maneuvers, the spacecraft's course after launch day would miss Mars by
about
950,000 kilometers (590,000 miles), an intentional offset to prevent
the
third stage of the launch vehicle from hitting Mars. The launch
vehicle is
not subject to the rigorous cleanliness requirements that the
spacecraft must
meet as a protection against letting Earth organisms get a foothold on
Mars.
The burn began at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Each of the four
trajectory-correction thrusters provides about 15.6 newtons (3.5
pounds) of
force. Smaller, attitude-control thrusters pivoted the spacecraft to
the
desired orientation a few minutes before the main burn and returned
it
afterward to the right orientation for catching solar energy while
communicating with Earth. Their thrust capacity is about 4.4 newtons
(1 pound)
apiece. The twelve largest thrusters on Phoenix, delivering about 293
newtons
(66 pounds) apiece, will operate only during the final minute before
landing
on Mars.
The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of
Arizona,
Tucson, with project management at JPL and development partnership at
Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions are provided by
the
Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the
universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck
Institute,
Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. JPL is a division
of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Additional information on Phoenix is available online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix and at http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu .
Additional information on NASA's Mars program is available online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mars .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Media contact: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond@lpl.arizona.edu
Gary Napier 303-971-4012
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver
gary.p.napier@lmco.com
2007-088
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