MISSION PHOENIX

THE MISSION

The University of Arizona is honored to be the first public university to lead a mission to Mars. The Phoenix Mars Mission, scheduled to land May 25, 2008, is the first in NASA's "Scout Program." Scouts are designed to be highly innovative and relatively low-cost complements to major missions being planned as part of the agency's Mars Exploration Program.

4:46 p.m., May 25: Atmospheric entry has started. time to get REALLY nervous. Now I'm in the "seven minutes of terror."

4:50 p.m.: Parachute is open!!!!! come on rocketssssss!!!!! 4:54 p.m.: I've landed!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4:55 p.m. Cheers! Tears!! I'm here! these are the words when the phoenix landed on the surfaace of the mars in iys new mission, looking for a sign of life there in mars.

Web-savvy space fans have tuned into the spacecraft's Twitter page, where Phoenix has been "tweeting" back daily messages from space. The page has quickly become one of Twitter's most popular feeds, and turned Phoenix into a rising star. Of course, this Phoenix is not a cutesy, talking robot turned spacecraft. Instead, the Lander's adventures appear online at Twitter.com, the social networking and micro-blogging site. The part of Phoenix is played by human: Veronica McGregor, the media director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

June 06, 2008 NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander made its first dig into Martian soil for science studies and is poised to deliver the scoopful to a laboratory instrument on the lander deck. The instrument will bake and sniff the soil to assess its volatile ingredients, such as water. Commands were received by Phoenix Friday, June 6, for the spacecraft's Robotic Arm to dump the sample into an opened door on the instrument called the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.

Mars weather report:

max. temp. -13 F or -25 C

min. Temp. -115F or -82 C

It is going to be one of the most important step in man kind that makes us more nearer towards our mission to find out another earth in the space. however it has been little bit confirmed that there may be a chance for the existance of another earth in the space and thats the reason we have increased our mission for the search of that new world. with tis onging mission pheonix on the mars has made us to beleive that there may be the reason of life some where in the space.however if this mission will give us the necessary results what we are waiting for that is the probablity of water then it is quite possible that in present of water life may also get a possitive sign.

May 28: It's very humbling, and thrilling that so many people care to follow. Want to be careful I don't "over-twitter" my welcome.

June 1: Looking forward to an exciting day on Mars; My first dig in the dirt! Team calls this a "dig and dump"

June 3: Sci team is done with today's news briefing. They'll be back on the clock to start the Martian work shift at 9:30pm PDT. Mars time is rough.