The Lander Attempts to Land
Today is a pretty big day for NASA and the Phoenix Mars Lander. In about 1 hour, the Lander will attempt to touch down safely on the planet’s surface. This is not an easy feat, with previous landers having a success rate of about 50%, with at least one crashing on the surface due to a miscommunication between units of measure (metric vs imperial).
NASA must be feeling confident today, however, as the marketing surrounding this landing has been impressive. I have seen interest from CBC, Discovery and Space channels, but there is more as well:
- Phoenix updates on the Canadian Space Agency web site
- NASA’s Phoenix Web site
- Updates from MarsLander on Twitter
Very soon, Phoenix will enter the 7 minutes of terror (video) that will make or break this project.
NASA seems to have a lot of confidence that this project will succeed. Good Luck, Phoenix!