Categories: MarsMissions

Phoenix Lander Still Visible in New HiRISE Images from Mars

The Phoenix lander still visible at Mars north polar region, nearly 4 Earth years and 2 Mars years after the spacecraft landed on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

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I spy Phoenix! said the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter! This new image acquired on January 26, 2012 shows that the Phoenix lander and its backshell are still visible from Mars’ orbit. The parachute, seen in earlier images, is probably about 130 meters south of where this picture ends. This is one of a series of images to monitor frost patterns at the Phoenix landing site, said HiRISE Principal Investigator, Alfred McEwen, adding that this new images shows almost the same appearance of the hardware as 1 Mars years ago, in 2010. See larger versions of this image at the HiRISE website.

See below for comparison images from orbit from 2008, shortly after Phoenix landed and 2010, after the mission had ended.

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Two images of the Phoenix Mars lander taken from Martian orbit in 2008 and 2010. The 2008 lander image shows two relatively blue spots on either side corresponding to the spacecraft's clean circular solar panels. In the 2010 image scientists see a dark shadow that could be the lander body and eastern solar panel, but no shadow from the western solar panel. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

In these images, also from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, signs of severe ice damage to the lander’s solar panels show up in the 2010 image, with one panel appearing to be completely gone. The Phoenix team says this is consistent with predictions of how Phoenix could be damaged by harsh winter conditions. It was anticipated that the weight of a carbon-dioxide ice buildup could bend or break the solar panels.

Source: HiRISE

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/