International   

NASA spacecraft closes in on Mars’ North Pole

PASADENA (CALIFORNIA): The three-legged NASA spacecraft — Phoenix Mars Lander — was closing in on Mars on Sunday for what scientists hoped would be the first-ever touchdown near Mars’ North Pole to study whether the permafrost could have supported primitive life.

The time it takes the Phoenix to streak through the atmosphere and set down on the surface has been dubbed “the seven minutes of terror” for good reason. More than half of the world’s attempts to land on Mars have ended in failures. “I’m a little nervous on the inside. I’m getting butterflies,” said Peter Smith, principal investigator from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Phoenix would rely on the intricately choreographed use of its heat shield, parachute and rockets to slow its descent from over 19,300 km per hour to a 8 km-per-hour touchdown. Mission controllers decided late on Saturday to skip an opportunity to adjust Phoenix’s flight path since the lander was well on track for its target landing site. NASA has not had a successful soft landing in more than three decades since the twin Viking landers in 1976. The last time it tried was in 1999 when the Mars Polar Lander angling for the South Pole crashed after prematurely cutting off its engines.

Phoenix was built from a lander that was scrapped after the Polar Lander disaster. Launched last summer, Phoenix has travelled 679 million km over nearly 10 months. The $420-million-mission is led by the University of Arizona and managed by JPL. Phoenix is equipped with an 8-foot-long robotic arm to dig trenches to expose the ice, believed to be buried inches to a foot deep. It will analyse dirt and ice samples for traces of organic compounds. — AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Musharraf not planning to quit: spokesman
NASA spacecraft closes in on Mars’ North Pole
Indian peers join leadership row
Strong aftershock jolts Sichuan
Won’t accept preconditions to form government: Maoists
On top of the world
Beitullah Mehsud emerges to deny hand in Benazir’s killing

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu