Today on the Phoenix Blog: Spacecraft Status, Questions Answered 05.21.09 -- If you were hitching a ride on Phoenix, right now Mars would look about a third the size of the full ...

This is a redirection page In case the javascript redirection does not work, please click on the link below: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

The Phoenix Mars Mission, scheduled to land May 25, 2008, is the first in NASA's "Scout Program." Scouts are designed to be highly innovative and relatively low-cost complements to ...

Phoenix Mars Mission Landing Celebration Sunday, May 25, 2008 from 3:00 - 8:00 p.m. Kuiper Space Sciences Building • Sonett Space Sciences Building

NASA Phoenix Mission Ready for Mars Landing 05.13.08 -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to taste and sniff fistfuls ...

Phoenix Closing in on Mars 05.24.08 -- As of 11 a.m. EDT on Saturday, May 24, Mars Phoenix Lander has 1.46 million miles still to travel in its 422-million-mile flight to Mars.

The Phoenix spacecraft launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a Delta II rocket. Image credit: NASA : Tools: + Print this article

Phoenix Mission: A new space explorer is waiting in the wings and ready to take center stage: the Mars lander called Phoenix. Set for launch aboard a Delta II rocket, Phoenix's ...

Phoenix Spacecraft on Course for May 25 Mars Landing. With three days and 3 million miles left to fly before arriving at Mars, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is on track for its ...

This map shows possible landing ellipses for the spring 2008 landing of Phoenix on Mars.

Today on the Phoenix Blog: Spacecraft Status, Questions Answered 05.21.09 -- If you were hitching a ride on Phoenix, right now Mars would look about a third the size of the full ...

This is a redirection page In case the javascript redirection does not work, please click on the link below: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

The Phoenix Mars Mission, scheduled to land May 25, 2008, is the first in NASA's "Scout Program." Scouts are designed to be highly innovative and relatively low-cost complements to ...

Phoenix Mars Mission Landing Celebration Sunday, May 25, 2008 from 3:00 - 8:00 p.m. Kuiper Space Sciences Building • Sonett Space Sciences Building

NASA Phoenix Mission Ready for Mars Landing 05.13.08 -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to taste and sniff fistfuls ...

Phoenix Closing in on Mars 05.24.08 -- As of 11 a.m. EDT on Saturday, May 24, Mars Phoenix Lander has 1.46 million miles still to travel in its 422-million-mile flight to Mars.

The Phoenix spacecraft launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a Delta II rocket. Image credit: NASA : Tools: + Print this article

Phoenix Mission: A new space explorer is waiting in the wings and ready to take center stage: the Mars lander called Phoenix. Set for launch aboard a Delta II rocket, Phoenix's ...

Phoenix Spacecraft on Course for May 25 Mars Landing. With three days and 3 million miles left to fly before arriving at Mars, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is on track for its ...

This map shows possible landing ellipses for the spring 2008 landing of Phoenix on Mars.

KentuckyFC writes "A NASA-funded test of an entirely new way to control orbiting satellites has ended with the prototype arcing dangerously and parts of the machine exploding. The new propulsion system is based on the Lorentz force: that a charged particle moving through a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to both its velocity and the field. So the plan is to ensure that a satellite passing though the Earth's magnetic field is electrically charged so as to generate a force that can be used to steer the spacecraft. The advantage of the idea is that it requires no propellant which is a big deal since most satellites' lifespans are limited by the amount of fuel they can carry. But the first ground-based tests haven't gone entirely to plan."

lgmac brings us a story about how NASA will bring information from the Phoenix Mars lander to the internet in the coming days. CIO Magazine speaks with JPL's chief knowledge architect and others about how they'll provide massive amounts of data from the lander to suit the needs of an audience ranging from professors to 8-year-olds. We've been discussing the Phoenix mission for quite a while now. The landing is on schedule for Sunday at roughly 5PM PDT. "'In previous missions, a system like this didn't exist and people were sharing images via external drives,' Bitter says. Some of the images are put up immediately and captioned, or sent to museum audiences, while others are made part of huge mosaic pictures that display the majesty of what the NASA spacecraft encounters, she says. In addition to the sheer volume of data that must be sifted through, challenges included the large, dispersed team, Holm says. 'The content management system has to be easy to use and agnostic,' she says, 'It's all about speed and accuracy of data.' Video on the Web represents one of the biggest changes for modern-day missions for the public, Holm says. 'There's a visceral response we get from people. They feel like they're really there.'"

coondoggie writes "Turns out that the surface of Mars is stiffer and colder than previously thought. New observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that any liquid water that might exist below the planet's surface and any possible organisms living in that water would be located deeper than scientists had suspected. NASA made the discovery while using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on the Orbiter, which revealed long, continuous layers stretching up to 600 miles, or about one-fifth the length of the United States. The radar pictures show a smooth, flat border between the ice cap and the rocky Martian crust, NASA said. On Earth, the weight of a similar stack of ice would cause the planet's surface to sag. The fact that the Martian surface is not bending means that its strong outer shell, or lithosphere, a combination of its crust and upper mantle, must be very thick and cold."

Simon Howes writes "After searching for decades, astronomers have found a supernova in our galaxy! So it wasn't little green men we were waiting for. It's located very near the center of the galaxy, about 28,000 light years away, and it's only at most about 140 years old. Quote from Bad Astronomy: 'If you're wondering what all the buzz has been about the past few days over a NASA discovery, then wait no longer. No, it's not aliens or an incoming asteroid. Instead, it's still very cool: astronomers have found the youngest supernova in the Milky Way.'" FiReaNGeL contributes a link to coverage on e! Science News; I think Wired's account of the super-hyped tele-press-conference is the funniest.

Several readers relayed the press release from JPL about the upcoming landing of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander on May 25. It's going to set down in the north polar regions and look for indications of whether conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life. "Phoenix will enter the top of the Martian atmosphere at almost 21,000 kilometers per hour... In seven minutes, the spacecraft must complete a challenging sequence of events to slow to about 8 kilometers per hour... before its three legs reach the ground. Confirmation of the landing could come as early as 7:53 p.m. EDT. 'This is not a trip to grandma's house. Putting a spacecraft safely on Mars is hard and risky,' said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. 'Internationally, fewer than half the attempts have succeeded.'"

StonyandCher writes in about a collaboration between NASA and a leading Australian exploration and mining scientist, Dr. Brent McInnes, to search for signs of ancient life on Mars. The plan is to develop and miniaturize the "Alphachron" — an exploration technology currently employed by the Australian minerals industry to determine the age of minerals. If the Alphachron can be miniaturized, it could fly with the next rover mission set for launch in 2010. "The highest priority is to understand when liquid water was present on Mars. 'The same minerals that can be found in [Western Australia]... can also be found on Mars,' McInnes said. Accordingly, by using the Alphachron to date minerals on Mars and thus tell when liquid water may have been present, it can be inferred when life may have been sustainable near the surface of the planet."

mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics is reporting that NASA — faced with the looming retirement of the space shuttle, and planning for longer missions like the one to Mars we've been discussing — is looking to free up its budget and depend a lot more on private space startups to carry key payloads into orbit in the next few years. For an agency so steeped in bureaucracy, it seems like everyone from NASA chief Mike Griffin to contracted officials to the key players in this in-depth podcast roundtable is finally acknowledging that commercial rocketeering (space tourists aside) is a more efficient means of getting back into space for NASA. Quoting: 'Because of a new focus for NASA's strategic investments — not to mention incentives like the Ansari X Prize, which spurred the space-tourism business, and the Google Lunar X Prize, which could do the same for payloads — private-sector spaceships could be ready for government service soon, says Sam Scimemi, who heads NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. "The industry has grown up," he tells PM. "It used to be that only NASA or the Air Force could do such things."'"

The Discovery Channel has done a deal with NASA to enhance old film footage from the space program up to the standards of HD. Discovery will air, in HD, a 6-part special called "When We Left Earth," beginning June 8. Judging by the trailer it should be pretty spectacular, a good introduction to the wonders of space exploration for a new generation. After the show airs, NASA gets the improved footage for their archives.

Ant writes "Popular Mechanics reports if the looming Discovery mission or any other between now and the spacecraft's retirement loses control, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is prepared to ditch it in the Atlantic ocean — or blow it up. The article also shows complete no-fly-zone maps and a photograph of the switch."

coondoggie writes to tell us that NASA and JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) have announced a partnership to study the sonic boom. Hoping to find the key to the next generation of supersonic aircraft, the research will include a look at JAXA's "Silent Supersonic Technology Demonstration Program." "The change in air pressure associated with a sonic boom is only a few pounds per square foot -- about the same pressure change experienced riding an elevator down two or three floors. It is the rate of change, the sudden onset of the pressure change, that makes the sonic boom audible, NASA said. All aircraft generate two cones, at the nose and at the tail. They are usually of similar strength and the time interval between the two as they reach the ground is primarily dependent on the size of the aircraft and its altitude. Most people on the ground cannot distinguish between the two and they are usually heard as a single sonic boom. Sonic booms created by vehicles the size and mass of the space shuttle are very distinguishable and two distinct booms are easily heard."