Phoenix Probe: Paving the Way for Future Human Exploration

This past Saturday, the unmanned Delta II rocket carrying the Phoenix Lander, robotic dirt and ice digger, blasted off from its seaside pad at 5:26 a.m., exactly on time, and hurtled through the clear moonlit sky on it's 422-million mile voyage to Mars. It was easily visible for nearly five minutes, a streak of bright orange in a sea of stars.

If all goes as planned the Phoenix will set down on the Martian arctic plains on May 25, 2008, where it will then spend three months digging into the frozen soil and ice, and analyzing the samples in miniature ovens and labs looking for traces of organic compounds in the baked and moistened samples. The 772-pound lander will stretch 18 feet across once its solar panels are deployed, and its weather mast will extend seven feet.

As our recent research in the Arctic and Antarctic regions on Earth have shown, If organic compounds are present on Mars, they're more likely to have been preserved in ice, which why NASA is aiming for the planet's high northern plains, where about six inches of soft red soil should cover the ice, and so the digger shouldn't have to probe too deeply.

Phoenix has the scientific capability "to change our thinking about the origins of life on other worlds," according to Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona A Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and head of the Phoenix mission. "Even though the northern plains are thought to be too cold now for water to exist as a liquid, periodic variations in the Martian orbit allow a warmer climate to develop every 50,000 years. During these periods the ice can melt, dormant organisms could come back to life, (if there are indeed any), and evolution can proceed. Our mission will verify whether the northern plains are indeed a last viable habitat on Mars."

LPL Director Michael J. Drake said, "Phoenix has the potential to be the smoking gun for the evolution of life elsewhere in the universe. While it will not directly seek to detect life, it will look for complex organic molecules. If they are there, they are hinting strongly at present or past life.

"Detection of complex organics will drive all future exploration, and the Lunar and Planetary Lab will play a prominent role. The discovery that we are not alone in the universe, that science fiction of Star Trek may in fact be science fact, will change the way humanity thinks about itself. The existence of even primitive life forms on raises the probability of advanced life elsewhere, and emphasizes our commonality rather than our differences."

Only five of the 15 U.S., Russian and European attempts have worked, all of them American successes beginning with the 1976 Viking touchdowns.

This will be NASA's first attempt to land a spacecraft on at such a high northern latitude. A lander intended for the red planet's south pole went silent immediately upon arrival in 1999. That failure, combined with the loss of the companion orbiter, prompted NASA to cancel a 2001 lander mission. The parts from that scrapped mission were used for Phoenix -- named after the mythological bird that rises from its own ashes.

Phoenix will be shooting for 68.35 degrees north latitude, comparable to Greenland or northern Alaska, and 233 degrees east longitude. The lander will parachute down to a target landing area that is "Kansas flat,", with pulse thrusters easing its final descent.with few if any big rocks that could overturn the stationary three-legged lander or bump against its circular solar panels and jam them.

Phoenix should help pave the way for human visitors, especially if it confirms the presence of water ice in large amounts near the pole, said Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist. That would be a tremendous resource, he noted. But if organic matter is indeed found, it could pose a quandary: "As gets more interesting, you may not want to send humans right away until you learn out a little bit more about the red planet and find out whether or not life ever got started there."

Attached to the deck of the lander is "The Phoenix DVD" , the first library on compiled by the Planetary Society made of a special silica glass designed to withstand the Martian environment, lasting for hundreds if not thousands of years on the surface while it awaits discoverers.

The disc contains Visions of Mars, a multimedia collection of literature and art about the Red Planet. Works include the text of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (and its infamous radio broadcast by Orson Welles), Percival Lowell's as the Abode of Life with a map of his proposed canals, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars. There are also messages directly addressed to future Martian visitors or settlers from, among others, Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke. In the Fall of 2006, The Planetary Society collected a quarter million names submitted through the internet and placed them on the disc.

Posted by Casey Kazan.