I am really looking forward to this mission immensely.
It matters not that Phoenix is a static lander. The potential of a first successful landing at a very high latitude on Mars is very exciting. The previous, Viking 2 at 48 North in Utopia, watched as the seasons changed, etc.
Of course with Phoenix, that will not be possible, due to the solar power requirements & the fact that CO2 snow is likely to be about 1 to 2 metres deep, come the Winter / Spring.
Phoenix, assuming & hoping for a successful landing, will answer many first level questions, such as the current hydration levels in high latitude soils, Summer high latitude temperature swings, IR imaging will reveal much about the surface composition, trenching will reveal much about the possible organic chemistry in the surrounding soils.
Regarding pictures. There will undoubtably be many great ones, even if the surface does seem rather featureless from orbital altitudes.
One thing that has not escaped my attention, is that Phoenix will be in the land of the Martian Midnight Sun. I hope that images will be put together to show the Sun approaching, then rising from the northern horizon!!!!
Also there may be some interesting cloud formations & weird atmospheric effects. Hopefully Phoenix may even last well into the Autumn as sunlight will still be fairly plentiful till just before the equinox.
Perhaps we may even witness the accumulation of some CO2 'snow', before the intense cold kills the craft off?
At the Mid Winter Solstice at this site, the Sun does not rise at all, but does come to about 2 degress of the southern horizon at noon. If Phoenix is still alive then, there could be some spectacular atmospheric glows & twilights. It is a moot point, because that cannot happen with Phoenix, but is an interesting thought, or at least I think so anyway.
There are other things that we could all wish for. I would like to see a seismometer added, recording Marsquakes. However that is not included, but that does not mean that I will go off in a sulk & say that Phoenix is a crappy mission.
If everybody had everything included that they wanted, Phoenix will be more like Battlestar Galactica!!!!!! Huge, very heavy, even under the Martian 38% surface gravity, not to mention a huge launcher to launch it from Earth.
Phoenix if successful will be one for the books. It is a great, highly capable craft, the product of dedicated people at JPL / NASA & some of the comments earlier in this thread did seem unrespectful.
I for one & I know Jon Clarke is also, really looking forward to this one.
Image below is the central portion of a MRO HiRISE image of the favoured landing site in Green Valley, Scandia Colles.
Andrew Brown.
__________________
"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before". Linda Morabito on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.
|