NASA'S Phoenix Spacecraft Reports Good Health After Mars Landing

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond@lpl.arizona.edu

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-082 May 25, 2008

NASA'S Phoenix Spacecraft Reports Good Health After Mars Landing

PASADENA, Calif. -- A NASA spacecraft today sent pictures showing itself in good condition after
making the first successful landing in a polar region of Mars.

The images from NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander also provided a glimpse of the flat valley floor
expected to have water-rich permafrost within reach of the lander's robotic arm. The landing ends a
422-million-mile journey from Earth and begins a three-month mission that will use instruments to
taste and sniff the northern polar site's soil and ice.

"We see the lack of rocks that we expected, we see the polygons that we saw from space, we don't see
ice on the surface, but we think we will see it beneath the surface. It looks great to me," said Peter
Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission.

Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m. Eastern Time) confirmed that the
Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. In the
intervening time, those signals crossed the distance from Mars to Earth at the speed of light. The
confirmation ignited cheers by mission team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.; Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver; and the University of Arizona.

As planned, Phoenix stopped transmitting one minute after landing and focused its limited battery
power on opening its solar arrays, and other critical activities. About two hours after touchdown, it
sent more good news. The first pictures confirmed that the solar arrays needed for the mission's
energy supply had unfolded properly, and masts for the stereo camera and weather station had swung
into vertical position.

"Seeing these images after a successful landing reaffirmed the thorough work over the past five years
by a great team," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of JPL. A key milestone still ahead
is the first use of the lander's 7.7-foot-long robotic arm, not planned before Tuesday.

"Only five of our planet's 11 previous attempts to land on the Red Planet have succeeded. In
exploring the universe, we accept some risk in exchange for the potential of great scientific rewards,"
said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Phoenix carries science instruments to assess whether ice just below the surface ever thaws and
whether some chemical ingredients of life are preserved in the icy soil. These are key questions in
evaluating whether the environment has ever been favorable for microbial life. Phoenix will also
study other aspects of the soil and atmosphere with instrument capabilities never before used on
Mars. Canada supplied the lander's weather station.

Transmissions from Phoenix have reported results after a check of several components and systems
on the spacecraft. "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."

Phoenix uses hardware from a spacecraft built for a 2001 launch that was canceled in response to the
loss of a similar Mars spacecraft during a 1999 landing attempt. Researchers who proposed the
Phoenix mission in 2002 saw the unused spacecraft as a resource for pursuing a new science
opportunity. A few months earlier, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter discovered that plentiful water ice
lies just beneath the surface throughout much of high-latitude Mars. NASA chose the Phoenix
proposal over 24 other proposals to become the first endeavor in the Mars Scout program of
competitively selected missions.

The signal confirming that Phoenix had survived touchdown and the transmission of the first pictures
were relayed via Mars Odyssey and received on Earth at the Goldstone, Calif., antenna station of
NASA's Deep Space Network.

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at JPL
and development partnership at Lockheed Martin. International contributions come from the
Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen
and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For
more about Phoenix, visit http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix .

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