I'll be sitting here in front of a VERY crowded PC monitor... a window for NASA TV, a window for UMSF, a window for the new Phoenix Twitter page, and now possibly a window for Emily's JPL video chat too... gonna need more screens than The Architect in the Matrix film..!

Here's the official timeline from the JPL Press Release, for those who haven't seen it yet at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-074a


-------------------------------------------------

Phoenix Landing Events Schedule
May 14, 2008

Unless otherwise noted, the location for news briefings and commentary are NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Times are Pacific Daylight and some are subject to change.

Thursday, May 22
-- News briefing, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 24
-- News briefing, noon
-- Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity (TCM6), 7:46 p.m.

Sunday, May 25
NOTE: The times below for the Phoenix spacecraft events on May 25 are for a nominal scenario. Remaining navigational adjustments before May 25 could shift the times by up to about half a minute. In addition, the times for some events relative to others could vary by several seconds due to variations in the Martian atmosphere and other factors. For some events, a "give or take" range of times is given, covering 99 percent of possible scenarios from the atmospheric entry time. For events at Mars, times are listed in "Earth-receive time" (ERT) rather than "spacecraft event time" (SCET). This means the listed time incorporates the interval necessary for radio signals traveling at the speed of light to reach Earth from Mars. On landing day, May 25, the two planets are 275 million kilometers apart (171 million miles), which means it takes the signal 15 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth. For some spacecraft events, engineers will not receive immediate radio confirmation.

-- Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity (TCM6X), 8:46 a.m.
-- News briefing, noon
-- Begin non-commentary live television feed from JPL control room, 3 p.m.
-- Begin commentated live television feed from JPL control room, 3:30 p.m.
-- Propulsion system pressurization, 4:16 p.m.
-- Begin "bent-pipe" relay relay (continuous transmission of Phoenix data as it is received) through NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft to Goldstone, Calif., Deep Space Network station, 4:38 p.m.
-- Green Bank, W. Va., radio telescope listening for direct UHF from Phoenix, 4:38 p.m.
-- Cruise stage separates, 4:39 p.m.
-- Spacecraft turns to attitude for atmospheric entry, 4:40 p.m.
-- Spacecraft enters atmosphere, 4:46:33 p.m.
-- Likely blackout period as hot plasma surrounds spacecraft, 4:47 through 4:49 p.m.
-- Parachute deploys, 4:50:15 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Heat shield jettisoned, 4:50:30 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Legs deploy, 4:50:40 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds. -
- Radar activated, 4:51:30 p.m.
-- Lander separates from backshell, 4:53:09 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Transmission gap during switch to helix antenna 4:53:08 to 4:53:14 p.m.
-- Descent thrusters throttle up, 4:53:12 p.m.
-- Constant-velocity phase starts, 4:53:34 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Touchdown, 4:53:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Lander radio off 4:54:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Begin opening solar arrays (during radio silence) 5:13 p.m.
-- Begin NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:28 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.
-- Begin Europe's Mars Express spacecraft playback of Phoenix transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing, 5:30 p.m. However, data for analysis will not be ready until several hours later.
-- Post-landing poll of subsystem teams about spacecraft status, 5:30 p.m.
-- Mars Odyssey "bent-pipe" relay of transmission from Phoenix, with engineering data and possibly including first images, 6:43 to 7:02 p.m. Data could take up to about 30 additional minutes in pipeline before being accessible. If all goes well, live television feed from control room may show first images as they are received. The first images to be taken after landing will be of solar arrays, to check deployment status.
-- News briefing, 9 p.m.

Monday, May 26
-- News briefing, 11 a.m.

It will be too late for me to follow it in real time. I'm on the same timezone as Climber.
What I will do is: Before going to sleep on Sunday night I'll bookmark the thread following the landing (here and perhaps in spaceflightnow.com too). After wake up on Monday morning I will NOT turn on the TV or read any news on paper or internet. I'll open the same thread at the very same point I left on the day before and read the entries one by one.

Tesheiner, I won't miss it for nothing! As I told before this is my FIRST Mars landing...

During the day I'll be in and out looking for news and as the good stuff begins to happen, at 8PM here I'll get myself comfortable at spacEurope's headquarters and enjoy every second of it.
I'll follow it via web, clinged to NASATV, UMSF, Phoenix website and Emily's interventions and trying to get spacEurope updated with the crucial events and reactions from team members.
I'm also thinking about doing a DJ set to fill the silent moments...

10 days only ...just can't believe it...

This is my 5th following "live"!
1- I started with the 2 Vikings but it was not possible to follow them live at this time. Get confirmations on the night news.
2- I had a very poor internet connection that I had to re-boot several times but, I was in front of my computer for Pathfinder landing (no Nasa TV, updates on whatever website it was)
3- Same place for MPL but a loooong wait and despairs
4- In Pasadena with TPS for Spirit landing : unforgetable experience
5- I was running a conference in the Pyrenees on Oppy's landing eve. I had to come back back to Perpignan (guess where it is?) where I brought an old computer, BIG monitor, and watched Nasa TV on a call line. But I did it and it was fun. I just couldn't understand what the first images where meaning.
So, I won't miss it for nothing either.
Eduardo, we'll update the Phoenix route map for you

My first one was Pathfinder, which the BBC spent a whole evening covering

I got REAL lucky & followed Viking 1 live. PBS here in the US had live coverage, and it was summer so no school.

Watched the first-ever pic from the surface of Mars come in line by line...absolutely unforgettable!!!!

Rui, can hardly wait to hear you describe your feelings after Phoenix is down & safe; it's quite an experience!

Down & SAFE...that's the mantra...
That will deserve a special "teary eyes" spacEuropeTV emission...

Rui, you will have a great time following the landing! I've missed Pathfinder (although I asked a friend to tape it from CNN) but for Spirit and Opportunity I saw the whole thing.
(I can also add to the list Mir deorbiting, Deep Impact, Huygens, and SL9 impact with Jupiter - I was observing visually the planet with a telescope during those days and saw the black markings produced by the impacts)

It's always an exercise of patience with some moments of anxiety :-) . The most interesting thing for me is the fact that you will see something new. It's impossible to guess what the landscape will look like or what the instruments will measure.
So save some strength to when the first images arrive. If for some reason I'd be unable to follow the actual landing, I'd certainly get up latter to see if we have images already (these things always happen in the middle of the night for us in Europe...).

Just some more days to wait !

Saudações 4º calhau a contar do Sol!

If nothing goes wrong I planning not to sleep...and to start working at 9AM...
I believe it deserves the effort...
And all the hypertension...

Guys...we are already live at spacEurope! Barry arrives in 20 minutes!

EDITED: Barry's is in the house!
EDITED 2: Not anymore...

I remember Opportunity landing was happening at some weird hour for us as well, something like 3 or 4 A.M., was frustrating to have to go to sleep after the landing and then quickly get up again at something like 8 A.M. to see the first navcam image. Too bad Phoenix will be the same way as this time I have work to go to in the morning!

Watching Pathfinder coverage on CNN, it sure was anticlimactic knowing it's down safe and realizing we'd have to wait a long time for pictures. For me, Huygens' landing was the most emotional, especially the confirmation of carrier signal directly on the ground. It actually took a while for the first surface image to sink in, to realize this is a completely different world than anything we've ever seen before!

I can imagine it must have felt something like that with the Vikings as well. If only there was an archive of footage of all these historical events as they happened so we can relive the drama as it happened...

Looks like a lot of us Europeans will be needing some...



J

Rui's latest spacEurope Q&A was excellent, with some very interesting info given by Barry Goldstein. Catch up on the conversation here.

Also, there are quite a few Phoenix-related blog posts at this week's Carnival of Space...

Barry was in a great mood wasn't he?
And faster than his shadow replying...if it weren't Doug we would be there asking about what did he had for breakfast...

Did BG said that an orbiter would see LIDAR's laser? And that this would be spectacular?!...
Simulation anyone?!

Well - Galileo did it during an Earth flyby, and I think a Surveyor spacecraft managed it from the Moon.

Doug

I wasn't aware of that...
And this will be Mars...not Earth or the Moon... ;-)

Regarding the huge dust devils - what risk do they post to the landing?

We covered that elsewhere - but the collective conclusion was basically, none. Chance of encountering one during EDL = very very low. Actual impact if it does = low.

Doug

I've posted a response in the Mars Missions: Past & Future Forum.

TTT

So do I

Great Q&A Rui, congrats are in order
Great blog too! Well done

Rui,
I don't know what's going on about your countdown (on SpacEurope) to Phoenix landing but it's wrong by at least 12 hours

The following animation has been put up at http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/videos.php#edl_hud, very impressive:


Now all that's missing is a second craft filming Phoenix during its landing and broadcasting live on HDTV

Daniel

Quick anecdote: I watched Pathfinder land- during my honeymoon! Needless to say, my new wife was less then pleased with me...

My first live Mars landing was Beagle2 ... I was out of reach of live coverage for Pathfinder and MPL.

My first live out-of-this world viewing was Giotto at Halley. Got me hooked. And saw (and especially HEARD) Ulysses launch in person at Cape Canaveral - so much happened in the meantime and the craft is still alive (somewhat). But I also remember running home from school for the first scrubbed launch attempt of Columbia STS1 ... it was a Wednesday afternoon in Europe, no school on Wednesday afternoons :-)

Daniel

I've been incredibly lucky, now that I think about it. Haven't missed live coverage of any Mars landing to date, plus Huygens! That streak better continue...

Obrigado Gonzz!

Climber, thanks for telling me that, I made a mistake generation the code...
Corrected now!

EDITED: Guys, if anyone is considering participating in spacEurope's competition, the deadline is already this Sunday, May 18, 11:59PM UTC...

Nprev, you should have posted it in this thread.

"Very impressive"?!?! That's one of the most exciting, inspiring and TERRIFYING animations I've seen from any mission so far (though the MSL landing animation still takes the "What the ***** are you THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?!? That's INSANE!?!?!?!?" Prize!)! It's like flying a chase plane alongside Phoenix on the way down... just unbelievable...

In an ideal world we will all start that movie playing at precisely the correct time for it to be in synch with the actual events as they happen... the next best thing to having a ringside seat...!

Well done to everyone involved in this movie, and in Phoenix Outreach so far, I think they've all done a fantastic job.

(also interested to see the look of the landing site in the movie... hmmm... very close to my first visualisation attempt... )

Click to view attachment

Brilliant movie.

So - come EDL time I've got to have.....

That movie ready to play
The Phoenix realtime website from Dan
UMSF
Twitter
Blog
NTV (Media channel. No offence Gay Yee Hill, but I like my EDL raw and unplugged)

Thank god I'll be able to have three monitors on the job

Doug

I am trying to focus my attention on other things but it is...impossible.
9 days surely mark the frontier between the days where I thought I would witness this calmly, with serenity, and the days where I'm getting all anxious...worst than the days before the Euro 2004 final...just hope this time I'll smile at the end...

I know I will...

I'm also confident Phoenix will succeed. Yeah, a lot of landers have failed, but we know and understand all the reasons why they have failed.

Go Phoenix!

One of the questions made yesterday (thanks for remembering that Doug! I share the same opinion...ACC Memorial Station) was about the naming of the landing site...not a real important issue right now, and Barry see it in a superstitious way..., but just for curiosity, I would like to know what, AFTER a SUCCESSFUL landing, you guys consider would be a proper name for the landing site?

EDITED: I am going to get some music links during landing day at spacEurope, if you guys have any suggestions those are welcome...it doesn't need to be Mars related...I'm choosing some positive, strong tracks...

Yeah, that would be a great name!

That can, of course , be done! I can insert an 'event' into the realtime simulation that tells you when to press play so that it tallies with the progress of the script ...

OR, if you have both the script and the movie downloaded on your PC, then the script can tell the movie to start at the appropriate time (possibly lags 1 or 2 secs as the loading of the movie takes slightly different lengths of time depending on the computer etc). But this only works if BOTH the script and the movie are on your PC. DONT rush to download the realtime simulation yet, it will run out of data in 3 hours ...

Would people be interested in the above functionality? Requires some reprogramming but (fingers crossed) should be able to be done.

now can anybody employ me to do these things ... it's great fun and distraction from real work

Oh yes, I dont suggest we all watch that movie in realtime on the web, the server there may not make it

Doug ... yeah for once it's good to have a big cubicle with all that technology ... I'm still trying to figure out whether to watch from home (large monitor) or go to the DSN visitor center nearby (=4 hours drive, that's next door in Australia)


Daniel

Daniel,

I found something that may be useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUCJkF9aW7g

This clip is almost 7 minutes long and in my opinion represent the EDL sequence relatively accurately.

EDIT : I missed the upper post with the simulation movie. Unfortunately it doesn't display on my machine correctly, checking it several hours later on another console.

Best wishes,

Svetlio.

I think the Phoenix teams own EDL real-time-with-height/speed is more useful to be honest.


Daniel - I say add an event into the time line that just says 'Beginning of Phoenix EDL simulation movie' or something like that, and we can all click play together


Doug

Here's one for ya... a YouTuber made an alternative opening title sequence for ENTERPRISE... events are now shown in proper chronological order, and there's s well-deserved guest appearance by... well, you'll just have to watch it, won't you..?

A rather long post with several replies:


I agree it's by far the best. I actually wrote my script because real (i.e. not teaser) animations like that were hard to find, and I cannot recall any landing where there is some sort of speed/altitude continuous progress shown.
Actually, I found the animation COMFORTING rather than TERRIFYING ... I did test-"land" my script, and I knew speed and altitude will go down to 0 at landing (I programmed it, didn't I), but the numbers were running so fast until touchdown that I really thought it's gonna "crash".



IMHO the best space related background music is still from the IMAX movie "Hail Columbia". Full of power and optimism. Unfortunately it's not freeware :-(




Thanks Svetlio. Yes I saw it as well, but the Phoenix team's own EDL gives me altitude and speed second by second. Will spend most of my weekend plugging the numbers from there


I will do that

We are now 8 days 22 hours 20 minutes (ERT) from landing on Mars. Altitude above Mars 2.08 million km, distance to fly 16.9 million km. It was a mere 286 days ago when the final launch poll heard "Go Phoenix".

Daniel

needless to say the landing scenario in the EDL movie does NOT match the nominal timeline published earlier this week. Doug, you're gonna be landing a few times on Mars (the movie, the script which follows the nominal timeline, and NASA TV)

I'll realy enjoy these views! I hope we'll be surprised anyway.

I have a question here : what kind of tones do we expect during EDL?
Will they be similar to the MERs which mean more or less this way :
Differents tones for speed reductions
Parachutte opens
Heatshield jetissons
Legs deploy
Radar starts
Lander separates
Retros start
Engines stop (this will be actualy different from MERs)
Can we expect to receive basicaly this (I guess from the orbiters) or something different? Will they be played "live" from the orbiters?
Anyway, for the one who want to listen again Spirit landing (TPS version), here it is http://www.planetary.org/radio/show/00000100/

We're not getting tones, it's UHF telemetry directly, and in real time, via Mars Odyssey.

Doug

I remember the Spirit and Opportunity landings...was up at 4 am..was in tears

It was early evening in Alaska for both of the MER landings (well, that time of the year up there it's evening almost all the time!), and I drove my wife & stepson nuts by alternately running upstairs to see CNN coverage & running back downstairs to my computer to try to get the NASA TV stream to work...good times, good times!!!

Thank you Doug, I didn't get it right before. Anyway, I think the most important milestones will correspond to the (MER) tones like : parachute opens, heatshield jetissons, etc...
Difference could be in the Dopler that will tell us about the slow down "live". We didn't have this with the MER, didn't we ?

Does anybody know if this happened, and if it affects the landing and/or entry interface time?

Anyway, based on the EDL movie and previous timeline, I can add the following additional events that I have worked out (thus no guarantee for accuracy) .. all in UTC:


L....| SCET.................| ERT..................| Event
.....| 23-May-2008 13:18:00 | 23-May-2008 13:33:09 | Enters Mars Sphere of Influence (SOI)
.....| 25-May-2008 11:25:00 | 25-May-2008 11:40:20 | Gravitational tug of Mars exceeds that of the Sun
.....| 25-May-2008 22:00:00 | 25-May-2008 22:00:00 | NASA TV raw coverage (media channel) starts
.....| 25-May-2008 22:30:00 | 25-May-2008 22:30:00 | NASA TV coverage (public channel) with comments
.....| -------------------- | 25-May-2008 23:31:13 | Entry Interface in Spacecraft Event Time
.....| -------------------- | 25-May-2008 23:38:32 | Landing in Spacecraft Event Time
.....| 25-May-2008 23:29:13 | 25-May-2008 23:44:33 | Mars Express acquires Phoenix signal
-450 | 25-May-2008 23:31:02 | 25-May-2008 23:46:22 | EDL movie - press play now
-410 | 25-May-2008 23:31:42 | 25-May-2008 23:47:02 | Maximum speed
-358 | 25-May-2008 23:32:34 | 25-May-2008 23:47:54 | Peak Deceleration
-335 | 25-May-2008 23:32:57 | 25-May-2008 23:48:17 | Peak Heating
-236 | 25-May-2008 23:34:36 | 25-May-2008 23:49:56 | Enters 3-sigma landing ellipse if landing is nominal
.....| 25-May-2008 23:38:32 | 25-May-2008 23:53:52 | Touchdown on Mars [46sec]
+006 | 25-May-2008 23:38:38 | 25-May-2008 23:53:58 | Helium venting [46sec]
+620 | 25-May-2008 23:41:33 | 25-May-2008 23:56:53 | Mars Express looses Phoenix signal
.....| 26-May-2008 02:14:40 | 26-May-2008 02:30:00 | Possibly first picture of Phoenix solar panel


Daniel

EDIT: neat revised logo Doug, very fitting!

"Does anybody know if this happened"

Yes, it did - reported on Twitter.

Phil

Just to clarify will NASA television as seen on my Satellite Dish-network will carry this live?

I don't want to be Disappointed with 24/7 ISS broadcast.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html
NASA TV Schedule
The programs listed below are changes to the regular Daily Program Schedule.
All times are Eastern U.S. time.
(non phoenix posts have been deleted. The media channel is not carried on Dish Network or Direct-TV. They carry the Public channel)

May 22, Thursday
2:30 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - Entry Descent and Landing Overview - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

May 24, Saturday
3 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - Landing Preview - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

May 25, Sunday
3 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - JPL (Public and Media Channels)
6 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Landing Coverage - JPL (Media Channel)
6:30 - 8:45 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Landing Coverage - JPL (Public Channel)
9:30 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing - First Downlink of Data - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

May 26, Monday
12 a.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Post Landing Briefing - JPL (Public and Media Channels)
2 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Update Briefing - JPL (Public and Media Channels)

Eastern US?
Pacific Daylight?
Why can't they use just one single time?!

For those (for me...I get lost with this conversions...if gets useful for you the better...) in this side of the ocean I've created a landing schedule in UTC.

Guess I'll have to do the same for NASATV Schedule now...