A rather sad story of success comes out of NASA this week. After months of literally groundbreaking success in one of the most harsh, bleak locations on the red planet, the Mars Phoenix Lander has fallen silent.
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot’s 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.
Mission engineers last received a signal from the lander on Nov. 2. Phoenix, in addition to shorter daylight, has encountered a dustier sky, more clouds and colder temperatures as the northern Mars summer approaches autumn. The mission exceeded its planned operational life of three months to conduct and return science data.
As the article notes, this comes as no surprise. NASA estimates of the landing area indicated that as summer ended in the Martian arctic region, frost and ice might build up to the point where the lander would be literally buried. Shorter days and dust storms coating the solar panels also shrink the amount of battery power which the craft could generate. Still, Phoenix exceeded the projected mission life by a full two months and the reams of data it sent back are only just beginning to be analyzed. Among the highlights, there is no longer any question about water on Mars. It is there. We have no way of knowing what other discoveries await, but the mission was an unqualified success.
One common question which seems to be cropping up is why Phoenix went dark in five months when the rovers – Spirit and Opportunity – were running around for years beyond their original mission scope. The answer is found pretty much in the same line as real estate questions on Earth – location and mobility. The rovers landed near the equator, with the longest possible “summer” season. They were also able to move around, finding the best locations for maximum exposure to the sun and windy areas to help clear dust off the solar panels that give them life. Phoenix landed with no wheels, destined to stay in that one dark, arctic location until it died.
So long, Phoenix. A job well done and you won’t be soon forgotten. This was truly one of or most ambitious and successful missions to Mars.