After Image Of 'Alien Craft' On Mars, NASA Cuts Mission

[zorgon]

Phoenix Landing
Camera on Mars Orbiter Snaps Phoenix During Landing
Phoenix Makes a Grand Entrance
2008-05-26


NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is the first time that a spacecraft has imaged the final descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body.

From a distance of about 310 kilometers (193 miles) above the surface of Mars, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter pointed its HiRISE camera obliquely toward Phoenix to capture this shot. Phoenix had just opened its parachute 46 seconds earlier, jettisoned its heat shield and was two minutes and 52 seconds away from landing on the Red Planet. The image reveals the parachute and a dangling Phoenix below. The chords attaching the spacecraft's back shell and parachute are faintly visible. The surroundings look dark, but correspond to the fully illuminated Martian surface, which is much darker than the parachute and back shell.

Phoenix released its parachute at an altitude of about 12.6 kilometers (7.8 miles).

The HiRISE, acquired this image on May 25, 2008, at 4:36 p.m. Pacific Time (7:36 p.m. Eastern Time). It is a highly oblique view of the Martian surface, 26 degrees above the horizon, or 64 degrees from the normal straight-down imaging of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The image has a scale of 0.76 meters per pixel.

This image has been brightened to show the patterned surface of Mars in the background.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

SOURCE: NASA Phoenix Lander

The Phoenix Lander discarded its heat shield after deploying the parachute. Scientists and engineers at JPL believe that the heat shield should also be visible in this image. After some analysis, the small dark dot located below the lander looks like a strong candidate for the heat shield. It is in the right location based on descent trajectories and timing.

Another sign that the small dark spot is the heat shield is that its pixel value is lower than any other dark spot in the vicinity. The lander is approximately 20 kilometers in front of the crater, so there is at least 20 km less atmosphere between the HiRISE camera and the lander and heat shield than between the camera and the surface. The size is right, too. The heat shield protected the bottom of the lander through atmospheric entry, so its external surface would be a charred black. It is visible in the images taken of the actual landing site.

SOURCE: HiRISE Page

[zorgon]

Descent of the Phoenix Lander
HiRISE Image
(PSP 008579 9020)


NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona 


NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

MRO's HiRISE camera acquired this dramatic oblique image of Phoenix descending on its parachute. Shown here is a a wider view of the full image, showing a 10 kilometer diameter crater informally called "Heimdall" and an improved full-resolution image of the parachute and lander.

Although it appears that Phoenix is descending into the crater, it is actually about 20 kilometers in front of the crater. It is difficult to believe that it is in front of the crater because it is so much smaller, but in reality it is, and that's a good thing because landing on the steep rocky slopes of the crater would have been far too exciting (or risky).

Images from the lander clearly show that it sits on a flat plain, although the rim of Heimdall may be visible on the horizon. Given the position and pointing angle of MRO, Phoenix is at about 13 km above the surface, just a few seconds after the parachute opened. This improved image shows some details of the parachute, including the gap between upper and lower sections. At the time of this observation, MRO had an orbital altitude of 310 km, traveling at a ground velocity of 3.4 kilometers/second, and a distance of 760 km to the Phoenix lander.

SOURCE: HiRISE Page - Full Size Tiff Here

Anaglyph of the Phoenix Landing Site
(PSP 008644 2485)




SOURCE: HiRISE Page

Phoenix Lander Hardware
EDL +11  (PSP 008585 2915)
11 Hours after landing


NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona 


NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona {click image for full size}

MRO's HiRISE camera acquired this image of the Phoenix landing site 11 hours after landing. The image shows three unusual features, which were not present in the earlier, pre-landing HiRISE image.

We expect to find three main pieces of hardware: the parachute attached to the backshell, the heat shield, and the lander itself. The parachute (lower right) is easy to identify because it is especially bright, although this image doesn't clearly reveal the backshell.

The double dark marking at upper right seems most consistent with disturbance of the ground from impact and bouncing of the heat shield, which fell from a height of about 13 kilometers.

The last object (upper left) appears to be a about the right size and height for the lander, and with dark objects on each side (to the east and west) consistent with the solar arrays.

This image was acquired in the nighttime, when the arctic sun was only 12 degrees above the horizon to the northeast. Later images will be acquired in the daytime with the sun higher in the sky and to the southwest, and could confirm our initial interpretations. North is about 7 degrees to the left of straight up in this image.

These objects were later confirmed on the subsequent HiRISE observation acquired 22 hours after landing.

SCALE INFORMATION
Map projected scale:     = 0.25
Original image scale range:     = 0.314742 cm/pixel

SOURCE: HiRISE Page

Phoenix Lander Hardware
EDL +22  (PSP 008591 2485)
22 Hours after landing


NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona 


NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona {click image for full size}

MRO's HiRISE camera acquired this image of the Phoenix landing site 22 hours after landing. The image shows three unusual features; seen also is the image acquired 11 hours after landing. These three features were not present in a pre-landing HiRISE image.

We expect to find three main pieces of hardware: the parachute attached to the backshell, the heat shield, and the lander itself.

The parachute (bottom) is easy to identify because it is especially bright, and this image also clearly shows the backshell. We can even see the stripes on the parachute.

The dark marking (middle right) appears most consistent with disturbance of the ground from impact and bouncing of the heat shield, which fell from a height of about 13 kilometers.

The last object (top) is the lander, and we can clearly see the solar arrays on each side. The solar arrays were relatively dark in the image acquired 11 hours after landing, but are brighter than the Mars surface in this daytime image acquired with the HiRISE blue-green filter.

There are dark halos around all three locations, perhaps due to disturbing a thin dust coating. North is about 7 degrees to the right of straight up in this image and illumination is from the lower left.

ANAGLYPH IMAGE
HiRISE has created an anaglyph image of the landing site.

SCALE INFORMATION
Map projected scale:     = 0.25
Original image scale range:     = 0.34551 cm/pixel

SOURCE: HiRISE Page

[rdunk]

Thanks zorgon, there is a lot of Earth "space history" in the words and pics you have posted here. Those of us involved in the Mars anomaly research need to take care that we don't pounce on an object as an "anomaly", when in fact may be a piece of Earthen "trash"/ lander residue.

Great info!

[The Seeker]

Looks like a left over from Star Wars

Opportunity :: Panoramic Camera :: Sol 340 


1P158365677RAD40CLP2582L257C1


1P158369020RAD40CUP2583L257C1

Opportunity :: Panoramic Camera :: Sol 340

Opportunity :: Panoramic Camera :: Sol 331


1P157572505EFF40AJP2361L234567M1


1P157306081EFF40A3P2578L4M1notaspring

Opportunity :: Panoramic Camera :: Sol 331

OK Zorg, I have been patiently waiting for you to tell us what these photos of debris are; is it part of the backshell from the rover itself?


seeker

[rdunk]

Ok seeker, not to jump ahead of Zorgon, but I do have info on these objects. I will post data from the Rover mission managers, that will detail these objects, for these Sol days.

The link, and the words follow for the info interest.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunityAll_2005.html


sol 325-332, January 05, 2005: Sizing Up the Heat Shield

Opportunity is healthy and has reached the site where its heat shield hit the ground. The rover will make detailed observations of the heat shield's remains, weather permitting. The rover experienced its first dust storm since landing, which has affected the amount of energy Opportunity gets each sol. When the rover landed nearly one Earth year ago, a dust storm was subsiding and the atmosphere had an opacity of 0.9 (the higher the number, the murkier the skies). Since then, the opacity had improved significantly and was roughly 0.5 on sol 327. On sol 328 the opacity jumped to 0.6 then to 0.8, 1.2, and 1.25 on sols 329-331. As of sol 332 it is at 1.2 and dropping. Images from Mars Global Surveyor orbiter have confirmed the presence of a few small dust storms in the region. The energy intake has decreased roughly 30 percent, leaving Opportunity with less energy for operations and communications but still enough, with comfortable margin, to continue with the plan to investigate the heat shield remains. The dust storms will be monitored carefully using the rover's own instruments and images from Mars Global Surveyor. The team will also be walking through low-energy contingencies should they become necessary.

Sol-by-sol summaries:

On sol 325, Opportunity drove 27 meters (about 89 feet) backward, to "West Point." It imaged the heat shield debris field from that vantage point. The engineers choose to occasionally drive the rover backward for convenience and to keep the wheel-motor lubrication more evenly distributed.

Sol 326 was the second sol of a two-sol plan. This sol was spent imaging the heat shield debris field.

On sols 327 to 329, the Mössbauer spectrometer was placed on the compositional calibration target for a series of observations over the Earth weekend. This is done periodically to calibrate the Mössbauer instrument. The rover continued routine atmospheric observations and remote sensing of the heat shield debris field.

On sol 330, Opportunity used its panoramic camera to take images of the heat shield debris field, then drove 15 meters (about 49 feet) to a location called "South Point" for another look at the debris field.

On sol 331, Opportunity drove roughly 10 meters (33 feet) to approach the flank portion of the heat shield remains. The heat shield broke into two main piece when it hit the ground. The flank is the smaller of those portions.

On sol 332, which ended on Dec. 30, the rover made its final approach to the flank portion of the heat shield wreckage in preparation for close-up inspection of the heat shield material over the New Year's holiday weekend. The drive brought Opportunity's odometer total to 2,051 meters (1.27 miles).

...sol 333-340, January 14, 2005: More Heat Shield Observations

The week saw Earthlings celebrate a new year and Spirit's first birthday on Mars (one Earth year) while Opportunity continued its trek around its own heat shield. On Earth, the operations team experienced a few tool problems, but the support team was in position to fix most problems as soon as they were discovered.

A dust storm that affected Opportunity the previous week has slowly receded, allowing increasing solar exposure. To conserve energy, Opportunity has been going into the deep-sleep mode every night, but as power continues to improve, the team is planning to resume using some early-morning Mars Odyssey communication passes to reduce a backlog of unsent telemetry.

Opportunity continues to be in excellent health as the rover team looks forward to the Jan. 24 anniversary of Opportunity's landing.

Sol-by-sol summaries:

Sol 333 was the second sol of a two-sol plan. The day was spent monitoring the opacity of the atmosphere and performing almost three hours of remote sensing. Atmospheric opacity peaked on sol 321 at 1.25. On sol 333 it was down to 0.97 and decreasing, indicating that the sky was clearing. The amount of power generated by Opportunity's solar panels increased from 546 watt-hours on sol 321 to 630 watt-hours on sol 333.

Sols 334, 335 and 336 were planned in a single planning cycle.

On Sol 334 (New Year's Eve), Opportunity performed 90 minutes of remote-sensing observations, inspected debris from the heat shield's flank with the microscopic imager, and then placed the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on the capture magnet on the rover's solar panel.

On New Year's Day, sol 335, Opportunity started taking data with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer early in the morning, napped several hours, awoke and turned off that spectrometer, performed another hour of remote sensing, and then went to sleep for the night.

On sol 336, Opportunity collected another two hours of alpha particle X-ray spectrometer data on the capture magnet and made remote-sensing observations for an hour.

On the morning of sol 337, Opportunity examined the flank portion of the heat shield wreckage with the microscopic imager, imaged the capture magnet, then stowed the arm and began its drive for the day. Opportunity banked up 2 meters (about 6.6 feet), turned and drove 10 meters (33 feet) to "East Point." At East Point, Opportunity performed 30 minutes of imaging, capturing a stereo image of the heat shield and a 360-degree view with the navigation camera. The rover then drove another 12.5 meters (41 feet) to a standoff point facing the heat shield seal.

The team experienced a problem with onboard file deletion on sol 337. There was a bad parameter in one command, so Opportunity rejected the entire set of commands. The result of rejecting the command file was that Opportunity's flash memory filled up and the flight software began deleting lowest-priority data products. Approximately 150 megabits of stored data products were lost. Because many images were being acquired and processed at the same time auto-deleting was taking place, the rover's computer was running very slowly. When Opportunity attempted to perform a "Get Fine Attitude," (a command that updates the rover's knowledge of its tilt and orientation), it timed out. The rover monitors itself and cancels things that take longer than planned, the same way home computers cancel attempts to access the internet if the server doesn't respond within a certain time. Due to the time-out, Opportunity responded that it didn't know its exact attitude (setting the surface attitude pointing and positioning -- SAPP -- knowledge to "unknown"). As a result of this, subsequent commands for using the miniature thermal mission spectrometer images were rejected. Pointing the spectrometer at the Sun would severely damage it, so in order for the rover to point the instrument, it must know its attitude.

Sol 338 became a restricted-operations sol due to a long latency in receiving relayed data. Telemetry was delayed more than seven hours, so Opportunity spent the sol performing more than four hours of remote sensing. The operations team was able to react to the failed Get Fine Attitude on sol 337 by creating a real-time command to reset the surface attitude pointing and positioning knowledge. The command was sent as part of the sol 338 uplink and worked as planned. Opportunity also performed both a left-eye and right-eye Get Fine Attitude.

Sol 339 was another "image, drive, image, drive" sol. Opportunity performed 30 minutes of pre-drive imaging, drove about 10 meters (33 feet), performed 80 minutes of mid-drive imaging, drove another 13 meters (about 43 feet) toward the charred side of the heat shield, and performed 30 minutes of post-drive imaging. All operations worked as planned, leaving Opportunity in position to approach the heat shield to perform microscopic imaging over the weekend. Sol 339 ended on Jan. 6.

Total odometry after sol 339 is 2075.52 meters (nearly 1.29 miles).

Atmospheric opacity on sol 339 was 0.83; solar array energy was 836 watt-hours.

[Littleenki]

Thanks, Zorgon for the totally clear decipherment! I learned early on here, from your test of course:D, to look not once or twice but many times at a subject or photo, and when you posted "alien craft on Mars" I thought...hey, we are the aliens there! LOL!
Holy cow! Yankee go home...priceless!!
You are the master of this world, Zorgon, and everyone needs to learn why the test is necessary to begin our journey on Pegasus with open wings and open eyes, too!

Cheers!
Littleenki

[The Seeker]

Thanks,RD: I suspected it was either the backshell or the heat shield, one, especially after reading the rest of the "alien craft" material; just seems lately that I never have the time for any extra research; sigh.

I would still like to know who (or what) cleaned off the solar panels on the rovers; just as how those impressions around them were made ( I am being sarcastic here, for I am of the opinion both the moon and mars have been our territory for many years)...


seeker

[rdunk]

Thanks,RD: I suspected it was either the backshell or the heat shield, one, especially after reading the rest of the "alien craft" material; just seems lately that I never have the time for any extra research; sigh.

I would still like to know who (or what) cleaned off the solar panels on the rovers; just as how those impressions around them were made ( I am being sarcastic here, for I am of the opinion both the moon and mars have been our territory for many years)...


seeker

You are welcome seeker! One thing is for sure, in my opinion, Mars for sure has been someone's territory, possibly for many years. While it seems that there is little interest in Mars anomalies here at the PRC, so far, still, there is so much photo evidence of civilized activity on the Martian surface, that it only can be denied by ignoring the pictorial facts (ie strong skeptic ).

While I do have other Mars anomalies to post here, at the Mars Anomaly Board, most of those I have posted previously there pretty much depict intelligent design, so somebody has been playing around out there.

I do have pictorial evidence of Rover photos having been doctored/changed to eliminate anomalous objects, so NASA et al is at least playing around with the Mars photo data being given to the public. What has really been found on Mars only God and NASA et al knows!!!

Note: NASA et al = NASA, JPL, ASU, U. S. Government, and stc.

[The Seeker]

Oh, there is interest in the anomalies, RD: it is just to the point that,I personally, have about an hour every evening that I can spend on the 'net reading and maybe a little research; depends on how many posts I have to catch up on...

by all means, post your photos; we are waiting...


seeker