Phoenix Mars Landing Thread

[astrosammy]

First images in a few minutes!!!

 

[Missioncmdr]

Downlink with Odyssey confirmed.

 

[Andy44]

They should be able to confirm machine state of health very quickly. Then the fun stuff and happy snaps.

 

[Missioncmdr]

First images coming in!

 

[Andy44]

Sweet! Dirt and deployed solar panels never looked so good!

 

[pete.dakota]

All singing... The first pictures show nominal array deploy and views of the footpads, surrounding area.

 

[Missioncmdr]

Images can be seen here:

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=0&cID=7

 

[silent_protagonist]

Polygons galore! And the ones in the foreground at least look like they have a similar structure to the terrestrial equivalents, which would be a hopeful sign for finding sub-surface ice, and maybe even liquid water.

 

[Missioncmdr]

Simply amazing.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

WOW! Great job JPL, NASA, University of Arizona and everyone else connected to this mission! Simply amazing doesn't quite cut it!

 

[silent_protagonist]

I've been seeing people looking at screens with 3D glasses on NTV. This is promising...

 

[markl316]

Wow. Just imagine. Something happening millions of miles away, in three hours time has taken pictures that are already on the internet. Technology has come so far in the past 60 years, it's extraordinary.

 

[Andy44]

Wow. Just imagine. Something happening millions of miles away, in three hours time has taken pictures that are already on the internet. Technology has come so far in the past 60 years, it's extraordinary.

I was thinking the same thing. I'll bet it took weeks or at least days before Viking photos were seen by the public, and then only in newspapers and low-res TV with rabbit-ear antennas, and later in books. We get the good stuff on our hard drives and ready to send to our inkjet printers in a time span on the order of 100 minutes or so.

 

[Missioncmdr]

Wow. Just imagine. Something happening millions of miles away, in three hours time has taken pictures that are already on the internet. Technology has come so far in the past 60 years, it's extraordinary.

Great minds think alike. The same thought crossed my mind when I was looking at the high-resolution pictures on the Phoenix website.

 

[Peter3210]

I was thinking the same thing. I'll bet it took weeks or at least days before Viking photos were seen by the public, and then only in newspapers and low-res TV with rabbit-ear antennas...

Not really. I was watching live coverage of the Viking 1 landing event on July 4, 1976. Transmission of the first surface image began 25 seconds after landing and took about 4 minutes. During those 4 minutes the Viking lander deployed a high-gain antenna and pointed it to Earth for direct communication. That was followed by a wide angle panoramic shot. That was a long time ago but it wasn't the dark ages :lol:

 

[Belisarius]

Congratulations JPL on a fantastic job - let's hope Phoenix finds lots and lots of interesting data.

NASA gets things right sometimes. I was asleep all during the descent, when I woke up this morning I went to nasa.gov, opened the page and held my breath - there it was, photos already!

I'll be popping a cork for the Phoenix

 

[Andy44]

Not really. I was watching live coverage of the Viking 1 landing event on July 4, 1976. Transmission of the first surface image began 25 seconds after landing and took about 4 minutes. During those 4 minutes the Viking lander deployed a high-gain antenna and pointed it to Earth for direct communication. That was followed by a wide angle panoramic shot. That was a long time ago but it wasn't the dark ages :lol:

I am old enough to have seen it, but I don't recall doing so. I was probably either in bed or playing outdoors. Given that it was the Bicentennial, I probably watched some serious fireworks that night. Too bad there was no Orbiter forum to keep me up to speed back then.

 

[Master of Blades]

Nice one...

Looking at the pictures from the Phoenix over at NASAs website, I find it hard to grasp that it's actually another planet... it all just seems so unreal. Sure, it's just red sand, but still, it's another planet, and we have cameras taking pictures there... amazing..

 

[ryan]

I was sitting in class when i found out, we had a class in the computer rooms, and i secretly got on to NASA website, and it said that Phoenix landed. I didnt think i jumped and cheered and all, then i noticed i was in class and just sat down. Very emaress.

 

[mrspacely]

did anyone watch the NASA press release? the fantastic teams and partnerships around the world im sure will hit the jackpot with this lander, once it starts investigating its surroundings.. in my opinion the picture that was released showing the surroundings and the 'polygons' all around look like frozen mud flats to me. i say the first soil sample returns h2o molecules..