First Photos from Phoenix

After a flawless landing and setup phase where very little dust was found on top of the lander, pictures began coming back.  It will be exciting to see the upcoming pictures as well as results of its soil analysis.  Anyway, attached are several pictures.

Solar Array

The Leg

A First View

A Nice Landscape

Phoenix: Success

EDL went perfect with no flaws and no loss of signal.  This could not have gone better.  Now we are waiting for the lander to unfold its solar panels, raise its camera boom and send back the first signals.  This should all happen within 2 hours.

Phoenix has landed!!

Phoenix – 7 Minutes of Terror

The EDL sequence has just started.  This is the most crucial phase where the lander must land on its own.  It must slow down from 12,000 mph to 5 mph for a soft landing in the northern planes of Mars which begins at an altitude of approximately 70 km.  This process will use a heat shield, parachute and pulsed landing rockets to set it down gently.

As the name suggests, this will be seven minutes where the success of the lander will be tested in the most extreme ways.

Landing is set for 7:53 pm EST.

Phoenix Landing at Cornell

Well today is a very important day.  The Mars Phoenix Lander will be landing at 7:53 pm EST and hopefully sending pictures back by 9:30.  I am currently sitting in Space Sciences 105 with several other people waiting, watching and hoping.  I also wished for a safe and soft landing when I blew out my birthday cake today.  I will post later as to the result of the landing.

Check out http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html for up-to-date information on the landing.

Propulsion System Pressurization was successful.  The next step is cruise stage separation.  Cruise Separation was successful, the uhf signal was detected and the 8kbps data stream has begun.  Everything has been oriented correctly and Phoenix is just waiting for the atmosphere now.

Back Home… Finally

Well this is my first day back home, however it still doesn’t feel like I am done with school.  I guess that is partly due to the fact that I still must use this summer for learning many things.  So what is planned for this summer?

Lots of Mets Games, learning perl, python, idl, matlab and mathematica better.  I also intend to do some reading on fourier analysis and complex analysis.  I also intend on going through Zettli’s quantum.  So to put things simply, I have a lot of stuff to do and the question is if I will be driven enough to get all of this done.

Anyway that is all for me.  The biggest thing is not to waste the summer.  Enjoy it but make the most of it.

Federal Gas Tax

I know this blog is focused on astrophysics but I would like to take this opportunity to express my views on the debate surrounding a suspension of the federal gas tax for the summer.

I think it is a bad idea.  Period.

18.5 cents is not enough to make a huge difference.  Plus we need the high prices to stimulate funding for research on alternative energies, solar, wind, and work towards a positive power fusion facility.

We cannot keep putting this off, we need to take the initiative and work to fix the problem.  It is not the sign of an evolutionary fit entity to not adapt to a changing situation.

Finally, if we remove the tax what happens when we put it back in place?  Could people stand to have a 18 cent increase overnight?  We should aim for stability and not just mask the problem.

CAS 2008-2009 Officers

I would like to congratulate our new officers on winning office and I know they are up to the job.  Secondly I would like to thank this year’s officers.  It was fun, we learned a lot and CAS is doing great.

New officers:

President: Lisa Bacis
Vice President: Russell Reinhart
Treasurer: Jenn Bailard
Webmaster: Sam Johnson Stoever

I am looking foward to Saturday, yeah its gonna be Astronomy Day.

Again congratulations and thanks