This cache was hidden to celebrate the landing of the Phoenix
Mars Lander which landed in the arctic region of Mars at 5:38 p.m.
Edmonton time on Sunday, May 25, 2008. Fifteen minutes later the
lander sent back a "I made it!" signal to Earth. The cache was
hidden a few hours before the landing and I'm glad the landing went
flawlessly or I would have had to make a mad dash back out to the
cache site to change the cache name to "The Phoenix was Supposed to
Have Landed".
The mission of the Phoenix Mars Lander is to dig down into the
martian soil to look for traces of water, and, of course, any
vestiges of life that just may have existed in the past on Mars.
Canada has made an important contribution to the mission: the
meteorological station which will measure pressure, temperature,
wind speed, etc. was contributed by the Canadian Space Agency
(more info here).
The last few missions to Mars have used the "bouncing ball"
method of landing rovers on the surface. This has been very
successful, but in order to land larger rovers -- and people -- in
the future, it is crucial to hone the ability to land using a
parachute and decent thrusters, which Phoenix did today. To find
out what's going on right now visit NASA's Phoenix
Mars Mission website .
Have fun!
Update from the Phoenix Mars Mission website:
As of May 25, 2010, the two year anniversary of the landing -- and
this cache -- after exceeding its planned lifetime, "the Phoenix
Mars Lander has ended operations after repeated attempts to contact
the spacecraft were unsuccessful. A new image transmitted by NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows signs of severe ice damage to the
lander's solar panels.
R.I.P. the Phoenix Mars Mission Lander. There's no ice
damage on the cache though; it's still going strong!