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NASA Spacecraft will Study Water-Ice on the Northern Plans of Mars
DENVER, May 25 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA has a new spacecraft operating on
the surface of Mars. This afternoon, the Phoenix Mars Lander, built by
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), navigated a dramatic blazing descent through
the planet's atmosphere, positioning Phoenix to dig down and touch the
planet's subsurface ice.
At 4:24 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time today, onboard software commands
fired six separation nuts and jettisoned the cruise stage of the spacecraft
while it was 635 miles away from the surface. That started a series of
events that took the spacecraft through six different configurations and
from a speed of 12,500 mph to a gentle touchdown on the surface. The data
signal confirming the spacecraft had successfully landed was received on
Earth at 4:53 p.m.
"Phoenix is an amazing machine and it was built and flown by an amazing
team. Through the entire entry, descent and landing phase, it performed
flawlessly," said Ed Sedivy, Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin
Space Systems Company. "The spacecraft stayed in contact with Earth during
that critical period and we received a lot of data about its health and
performance. I'm happy to report it's in great shape."
Flight operations since launch and through landing were performed by a
tight-knit team in Pasadena and Denver. Mission management and navigation
were handled by JPL and spacecraft operations were performed by Lockheed
Martin. The joint team stayed in daily contact with the spacecraft through
the Deep Space Network since its launch on Aug. 4, 2007.
"We are absolutely delighted by the successful landing of the Phoenix
spacecraft," said Jim Crocker, vice president of Sensing & Exploration
Systems at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "Years of patience,
planning, preparation and teamwork paid off handsomely this afternoon.
We're very proud to have played a role in another one of NASA's exciting
voyages of exploration."
After landing, the spacecraft waited 20 minutes for dust to settle
before it deployed its stereo camera, meteorology mast, robotic arm
bio-barrier bag and, most importantly, its twin solar [1] [2] [3] 下一页
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