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History of Phoenix
sourceWhen Phoenix was first created it was named after a mythological bird thats repeatedly reborn from its own ashes. They were sending Phoenix hoping that they would find ice on Mars's Artic Planes. -
Launching
SOURCEPhoenix was launched on August 4, 2007, at 5:26 a.m. It was launched at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. When it was launched a noctilucent cloud was created by the exhaust gas from the rocket that launched it.The colors in the gas cloud were formed from a prisim-like effect of the same ice particles in the exhaust trail left. -
Landing on Mars
sourceWhen Phoenix entered the Martian atmosphere at nearly 13.000 mph. Within 7 minutes its speed went down all the way to 5 mph right when it was about to touch Mars surface. When it was about to land the craft used its thrusters to orient its solar panels. Within a hour later it was sending images from Mars. -
Information from the surface
sourceOne of the first things that the craft did was to dig and sample the red soil for ice after its days of testing. Phoenix's robotic arm soon took a picture of where it dug. When the picture was sent to NASA they said that it was a layer of ice.Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis said: "We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone." -
End of Mission
sourceOn October 28,2008 the craft went into shutdown. It shutdown because of the insufficient amount of sunlight reaching on the craft. On November 10,2008 Phoenix Misson Control lost communication from Phoenix. Right before it shutdown Phoenix sent its last message that said," Triumph". -
Interesting Facts
On August 1, 2008,Aviation Week reported that "The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the "potential for life" on Mars. This whole thing lead to a huge media speculation. Still, we do not know if there ifs life on Mars.
