[FPSPACE] Phoenix Goes Quiet

[LARRY KLAES]

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Phoenix_Goes_Quiet_999.html

Phoenix Goes Quiet

The Phoenix lander has operated at a Martian arctic site for more than two 
months longer than its initially planned, three-month prime mission.

by Staff Writers

Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 31, 2008

NASA'S Phoenix Mars Lander, with its solar-electric power shrinking due to 
shorter daylight hours and a dust storm, did not respond to an orbiter's 
attempt to communicate with it Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Mission controllers judge the most likely situation to be that declining 
power has triggered a pre-set precautionary behavior of waking up for only 
about two hours per day to listen for an orbiter's hailing signal. If that 
is the case, the wake-sleep cycling would have begun at an unknown time when 
batteries became depleted.

"We will be coordinating with the orbiter teams to hail Phoenix as often as 
feasible to catch the time when it can respond," said Phoenix Project 
Manager Barry Goldstein at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, 
Calif.

"If we can reestablish communication, we can begin to get the spacecraft 
back in condition to resume science. In the best case, if weather 
cooperates, that would take the better part of a week."

The Phoenix lander has operated at a Martian arctic site for more than two 
months longer than its initially planned, three-month prime mission. The sun 
stayed above the horizon around the clock during the prime mission, but is 
now below the horizon for about 7 hours each night.

Engineers at JPL and at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, operate 
Phoenix and the two NASA orbiters used for relaying communications with the 
lander, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey.