Phoenix Special > Update

Good news and sights from Mars!

Phoenix is ready to begin moving its robotic arm, first unlatching its wrist and then flexing its elbow. The commands for moving the the arm were sent by the team on Tuesday morning, May 27, to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for relay to Phoenix.

Somehow, MRO did not relay those commands to the lander, so arm movement and other activities are expected to take place today.

Incredible images! HIRISE has done it again...

See what I mean?...

Whoa!

In the above image (click to access full resolution) it is possible to see shows a full-resolution view of the Phoenix parachute and lander during its May 25 descent, with Heimdall crater in the background.

It shows the parachute attached to the back shell, the heat shield and the lander itself against red Mars. The parachute and lander are about 300 meters.

According to HiRISE principal investigator Alfred S. McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson Phoenix appears to be descending into the 10 kilometer crater, but is actually 20 kilometers, in front of Heimdal.

Whoa-Whoa!!!

And here you have the first views (click to access full resolution) from the Phoenix on her landing site where it will work for the next three months...Pretty bird!!!

Speaking of images...
If you are remembered, in spacEurope Live Q&A with Michel Denis and Peter Schmitz I asked our guests, what would HRSC, the camera onboard Mars Express be able to capture during Phoenix's approach?...

By then, Denis, Head of the MARS EXPRESS Mission Operations Unit, and Schmitz, Mars Express-Phoenix Service Manager, told spacEurope readers that the HRSC was hoping to catch a few (3-4) pixels of the fireball entering the Martian Atmosphere with the Super Resulution Channel while the probe was above the Limb as seen from MEX.

Now, after Phoenix already reached martian ground two questions urge:

Were those images acquired and, if that was achieved...Where are they?

I have contacted Michel Denis once more who, kindly, helped us knowing what is expected to happen.

Denis asked space exploration fans to have just a bit of patience for HRSC...

According to the Head of the MARS EXPRESS Mission Operations Unit, the images were indeed attempted but the result is very uncertain, it was also referred that the data is now all on ground, in the hands of the specialists, however, Denis added that, if anything is in the images, by no way HRSC results can approach the exceptional image made by MRO HIRISE of the parachute and Phoenix.

But of course Denis thinks that it would still be nice to see a few bright pixels dashing though the HRSC Super Resolution Channel although its spatial resolution is roughly 10 times less than HiRISE.

Michel Denis was a really happy man with the lander's success, in his words, what counts is the extraordinary landing of Phoenix "in real time" and to learn from this, such that Europe makes its first real landing with Exomars, which Denis believe will be a big success in a few years (retrospectively Beagle -2 was not much more than an experiment).

Finally, the Head of the MARS EXPRESS Mission Operations Unit, invited us all to watch tomorrow (today, May 28) the ESA website, where will be published what Mars Express has " heard" with Melacom, Denis enhances the fact of not being a a picture, but it will be their way to proudly say: "Hey guys, Europe was there too during Phoenix arrival."

And this fact has been already officially and kindly recognised by NASA already, but it was not so visible to the general public.

Today you will be able to confirm it yourself...

EDITOR'S NOTE:

This blog won't allow spurious debates or offensive remarks towards individuals or institutions therefore, the policy of maintaining the comments option disabled, except for special events like Live Q&As, will pursue. Another reason is the recurrent malicious attacks that this site has been through for several months.

One gives one hand, other wants to take the whole arm...