NASAs Mars Polar Lander is fine-tuning its path toward the Red Planet, on target for a Dec. 3 touchdown near the Martian south pole.
The spacecraft fired its steering engines for 30 seconds on Wednesday to slightly shift its track.
"It is like we are flying from New York to California and with (the) maneuver we decided to land in Los Angeles instead of San Diego," said Sam Thurman, flight manager for the Mars Polar Lander at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Over the next several months the spacecraft will continue to fine-tune its approach to Mars, a process Thurman says "is similar to deciding which specific runway at LAX we want to land on."
The spacecraft is now about 22.7 million miles from Mars, traveling at about 8,300 mph. It is aiming for a site located at 76 degrees south latitude and 195 degrees west longitude, near the northern edge of the layered terrain in the vicinity of the Martian south pole.
The robotic scout is equipped with cameras, a small mechanical arm for digging and instruments to study the Martian soil. Two small microprobes are riding piggyback on the spacecraft. They will be jettisoned before landing to fly independently to Mars and penetrate into the planets soil to look for signs of water.
advertisement
