Seven minutes of terror today, at least for JPL and NASA

Late this afternooon, Sunday May 25th, the Pheonix lander will enter the Martian atmosphere and try to soft land on the edge of the North pole.

This is the sister craft to the 2001 Mars Polar Lander that crashed due to either programing errors or physical faults. Sucessfully landing on Mars is at best a fifty-fifty thing so cross your fingers.

First possible confirmation of it surving touchdown would be at 4:53 PDT. NASA and JPL are offering live webcasts if you are interested. The actual landing would be fifteen minues and twenty seconds earlier, just the radio signals take that long to get to Earth at the momment.

John in Wauwatosa

The MASA/JLP Pheonix site is at

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1693