NASA's next Mars spacecraft is set to fly to Florida today...if weather cooperates in snowy Colorado.

Moving Day to Mars
Author Leonard David
NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander is slated to start its long distance love affair with the red planet today - but by airlift.

A C-17 cargo plane is ready at Buckley Air Force Base here in Colorado to deliver the next Mars mission to Florida, the next step toward its blastoff in August. Liftoff is a mere 87 days away atop a Delta 2 booster.

Phoenix is targeted for a legged landing at Mars’ arctic region in May 2008.

It’s all tender-loving care today as the spacecraft builders, technicians and other specialists at Lockheed Martin Space Systems have crated up the Phoenix spacecraft near Denver, Colorado for its flight to Florida.

If the weather cooperates — it’s snowing here this morning — I’ll be onboard the cargo plane headed to the warmer climes of Florida later today.

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2007/05/0...ng-day-to-mars/

UPDATE (5/8/07):

"Numbers of “loadmasters” worked together to get the Mars probe and its related hardware onto the aircraft. Phoenix was contained within a nitrogen-purged box, loaded with sensors to gauge any bumps and thumps en route to the Kennedy Space Center. The large crate was chained down solid inside the plane.

The C-17 Globemaster III was commanded by Major J. Scot Heathman out of Charleston Air Force Base. After a 3.5 hour flight, Heathman and his flight crew brought the plane down to an incredibly smooth touch down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center.

Ground teams then extracted the boxed-up Phoenix and drove the probe to a nearby facility for further checkout and preparation for launch.

All went well in the flight and delivery of NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander - destined to open a new chapter in the exploration of the red planet and the quest to understand whether that world is now — or was ever — an extraterrestrial abode for life."

Photos of Phoenix's arrival at KSC:

Great stuff, punkboi...love the pics, thanks!!!

These and more can be found here too:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=4

They should be starting a Phoenix category soon.

Phoenix will probably get its own category once Dawn launches next month.

How's this for a sensational headline?:

Probe to dig for past life on Mars
CNN.com
May 9, 2007

The last words of the piece tell the actual truth....

"if Mars had the ingredients for life."

New photos of Phoenix up on KSC site:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=4

I can't see Mardi? It must be there - I thought it was bolted onto the side of the bus, looking a bit like an extra thruster. Has it been moved inboard to look thru that circular cut in the bottom of the bus?

Pictures of spin testing minus the heatshield. I'm hoping the de-stack the lander from the backshell so that the excellent KSC photo guys can get some great shots of the lander before August. I'm guessing they do a spin balanace of the stack minus the heatshield now to get an idea of what balance ballast needs to be fitted to the heatshield so that when they do a spin test of the stack again before launch - all should be spot on.


Doug

In KSC-07PD-1091, it's the thing with the blue glove on top of it. It's mounted to a bracket on the bottom surface of the science deck.

Ahh - way over there - got it - thanks Mike.

Doug

This has to be the WORST place to put your office chair and table.


http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=32149

That'd be a fun one for a caption contest.

--Emily

And imagine if one of the techs in the picture was holding up a marshmallow on a stick.

Well then it'd be the qualification tests for the motors for SS1


Doug

That was taken during DMCO testing. Delta Mission CheckOut

And here it is, "Expendable LV > Phoenix" (Documents: 48)

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=174