This past Saturday, the Phoenix Mars Mission’s Science Operations Center had an open house. Being a space geek of many years standing, I couldn’t stay away from that one.
As of Saturday, the Phoenix Mars Mission was up to Sol 88 — that’s mission-speak for the 88th day on the Martian surface. The plucky little Lander is still sending back data, so the mission people just had to show us some photos. Many of them were in 3-D, which necessitated the donning of those oh-so-fetching glasses with paper frames…
Okay, that’s the earthling fashion report from the Science Operations Center’s press conference room. Let’s go take a look at the Lander mockup…
The video camera was there to record a series of robotic arm movements that the Mars Lander team was trying out. Or, I should say, the team was attempting to try them out. As so often happens in scientific research, Things Were Not Going According To Plan.
But, not to worry, the team will get things to run properly. Just give ’em time. They already have a flawless landing and lots of successful data gathering under their belt.