Several
crucial devices aboard NASA's Mars-bound Phoenix lander have passed in-flight
testing.
Mission
managers remotely inspected Phoenix's descent-monitoring radar as well as its
UHF radio, which will communicate with Mars satellites after it reaches the red
planet's surface on May 25, 2008. The instruments
passed all tests with flying colors as the craft zooms through space at 76,000
mph (34 kilometers per second).
"Everything
is going as planned. No surprises, but this is one of those times when boring
is good," said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Phoenix currently speaks with Earth via a
high-frequency X-band radio unit, but the device is mounted on a part of the
spacecraft that will be jettisoned shortly before Phoenix encounters the
Martian atmosphere. The UHF radio will be crucial to relaying data once the
piece is detached.
As Phoenix
plummets to the red planet's surface, its radar system will ping the distance
to the ground and switch on descent-slowing engines and other equipment at just
the right moments during descent.
If the
lander touches down in the northern
reaches of Mars unscathed, mission scientists are looking forward to
probing the icy soil to check for conditions hospitable to microbial life. Just
days prior to the radar and UHF radio checks, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas
Analyzer--which will analyze the soil conditions--also passed thorough checks.
Four more instrument
checks are set before Phoenix makes its correction maneuver,
planned for Oct. 16, that will continue the spacecraft on its remaining 422-million-mile
(679-million-kilometer) flight to Mars. Phoenix has traversed more 50 million
miles (81 million kilometers) of space since it
blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Aug. 4, 2007.
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