Final Attempts to Hear from Mars Phoenix Scheduled

PASADENA, Calif. - From may possibly 17 to 21, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter long for conduct a fourth and final campaign to check on whether the Phoenix Mars Lander has come up to back to life.

For the duration of so as to full stop, Odyssey long for listen in in favor of a imply from Phoenix for the duration of 61 flights concluded the lander's spot on far-northern Mars. The orbiter detected nix transmission from the lander in the field of earlier campaigns toting up 150 overflights in the field of January, February and April.

In the field of 2008, Phoenix accomplished its three-month mission studying creature from outer space ice, soil and feeling. The lander worked in favor of five months facing bargain sunlight caused energy to turn out to be insufficient to keep the lander functioning. The solar-powered robot was not designed to last through the dark and cold conditions of a creature from outer space bitter winter. However, in the field of holder it did, NASA has used Odyssey to listen in in favor of the signals so as to Phoenix would transmit if abundant spring sunshine re-energized the lander.

Northern Mars long for experience its maximum-sunshine sunlight hours, the summer solstice, on may possibly 12 (Eastern stage; may possibly 13, Universal Time), so the sun long for come about superior in the field of the sky beyond Phoenix for the duration of the fourth listening campaign than for the duration of in the least of the preceding ones. Still, expectations of earshot from the lander continue low.

"To come about thorough, we categorical to conduct this final session around the stage of the summer solstice, for the duration of the superlative thermal and power conditions in favor of Phoenix," thought Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer in favor of the Mars Exploration code by the side of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The Phoenix mission is led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management by the side of JPL and development corporation with Lockheed Martin deep space Systems. JPL, a division of the California Institute of know-how in the field of Pasadena, too manages the Odyssey project in the field of an operational corporation with Lockheed Martin.