Alistair Calder » Space http://www.alistair.com My home on the web Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:20:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 The Lander Attempts to Land http://www.alistair.com/2008/05/25/the-lander-attempts-to-land/ http://www.alistair.com/2008/05/25/the-lander-attempts-to-land/#comments Sun, 25 May 2008 23:37:59 +0000 admin http://www.alistair.com/2008/05/25/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:

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!

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