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Mars exploration: Phoenix: a race against time

Nature volume 456, pages 690–695 (2008)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 31 December 2008

Eric Hand reports on the short life and hard times of the little Mars lander that sort-of-could.

By the standards of Tucson, Arizona — let alone the northern plains of Mars — Ithaca, New York, is lush in any season. But winter is coming on. The autumn foliage is already past its prime as Peter Smith strides up the steep hill towards the Cornell University campus. It is 14 October, and Smith, a professor at the University of Arizona, is scheduled to give a talk on the status of NASA's Phoenix lander at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Science. Smith is Phoenix's principal investigator, and the only academic ever to have overall responsibility for running a mission on the surface of Mars. He has decided to walk from his downtown hotel to the conference centre, and the unseasonably sunny weather is exacting its toll. A patch of sweat spreads from the centre of his bright orange golf shirt towards the burning, beady-eyed bird emblazoned on his breast: the Phoenix mission badge.

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  1. Eric Hand
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See Editorial, page 675 See also Correspondence: Finding of unusual soil on Mars could stem from tools used

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Phoenix landing blog

Phoenix slideshow

Mars Rover Web Focus

Mars Insight (2001)

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University of Arizona Phoenix Website

Nasa Mars Exploration Programme

2008 Division for Planetary Sciences meeting at Cornell University

Dover Beach

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Hand, E. Mars exploration: Phoenix: a race against time. Nature 456, 690–695 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/456690a

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