The Phoenix Mars Lander has not communicated since Nov. 2, and engineers from the mission assume the vehicle is now completely out of power. Therefore, at a news conference today, mission managers announced the Phoenix the mission is now officially over. "At this time we're pretty convinced the vehicle is no longer available for us to use, and we're declaring the end of the mission," said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager. "We've been surprised by this vehicle before, and we're still listening. We'll try to hail Phoenix, but no one has the expectation we'll hear from it again. We're completely proud of what we've accomplished. We've achieved all of the science goals and then some."
As anticipated, the seasonal decline in sunshine at the arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments. And a dust storm at the landing site made the sunlight decrease even further, ending the mission a little sooner than the team had hoped.
As for any possibility of re-contacting the lander next year when spring returns to Mars' northern arctic, Goldstein didn't rule it out, but said its not very likely. "By the mid October (2009) time frame, there would be enough sunlight hitting the solar arrays to create power," he said. "But its highly unlikely the vehicle will come back. It will be encased in CO2 ice, in temperatures under -150 C. The solar arrays will likely crack and fall off the vehicle,… the electronics will become brittle and break, so the wiring boards won't work. But this vehicle has behaved so superlatively, we'll look again in October."
No comments:
Post a Comment