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Phoenix Mars Lander
Launch: August 4, 2007
Landed on Mars: May 25,
2008
Phoenix Mars Lander, Welcome
to Mars!
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Landing
Day - May 25, 2008
The Entry, Descent and Landing
(EDL) Team's Perfect Landing! |
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Senior Engineer
Richard Kornfeld cheering. Everyone in the control room wore
special Phoenix EDLTeam shirts with my artwork on them. |
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Peter Smith, the Phoenix Principal Investigator,
was thrilled. Note the special Phoenix EDL Team badge with my
artwork. |
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Phoenix Landing Day Event at Caltech
with Mars flag
then-girlfriend Annie held for a
moment (not mine)
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My Phoenix artwork was on
the back wall during the landing. |
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Phoenix landing success - my artwork
is on the binder cover.Team shirts, badges, wall art and binder
covers with my artwork on them added up to both another great
day for Mars exploration and my artwork! |
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Landing day in Tucson, Arizona: Heather
Enos, project manager for the TEGA instrument and Chris Shinohara,
project manager for the Surface Stereo Imager and Robotic Arm
Camera. |
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Phoenix Mars Lander Large
Pic Posters
Click on them to see full-size
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Like the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit
and her sister Opportunity, the team referred to the Phoenix
lander as a female. Her feminine personality was evident as she
twittered her way from Earth to Mars, most famously on landing
day. |
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Tweets sent by Phoenix during landing,
May 25, 2008:
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Atmospheric entry has started, time
to get REALLY nervous. Now I'm in the "7 minutes of terror." |
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Peak heating in 40 seconds! |
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parachute must open next. my signal
still getting to Earth which is AWESOME! |
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parachute is open!!!!! |
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come on rocketsssss!!!!! |
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I've landed!!!!!!!!!! |
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Cheers! Tears! I'm here! |
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End of mission Nov. 10, 2008
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Phoenix Artwork
at JPL |
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My parents on JPL tour with my Phoenix
artwork |
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Phoenix artwork at JPL |
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Pre-dawn Launch
from Kennedy Space Center - Aug. 4, 2007 |
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Launch of Phoenix Mars
Lander |
Double-exposure of
me minutes after watching pre-dawn launch |
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Kennedy Space Center
launch poster with my artwork |
Phoenix launch event badge with my artwork,
Kennedy Space Center, on post-launch tour |
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Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein
at press conference in front of my artwork |
My Phoenix touchdown scene is on the
cover of David Harland's "Space
Exploration 2008" |
Phoenix Mars Lander
Cover Art
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PBS DVD |
NOVA DVD |
Sept. 2008 cover of Sky and
Telescope |
Aug. 2008 cover of Astronomy
Now |
Phoenix Mars Lander on Mars Image Gallery
The official Phoenix project
website at the University of Arizona
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CSA Phoenix sticker: The Canadian Space Agency provided instruments
for measuring the weather. |
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Phoenix captured the image at left showing
the green LIDAR laser beam illimunating dust in the Martian sky
above the lander. |
A Look Back at a Noble Mars Lander Popular Science,
May 22, 2009
Kennedy Space Center, Florida,
April 4, 2007
My Artwork on the Phoenix
Launch Tower
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My Artwork on the
Phoenix Launch Tower
This was something new - my artwork
appeared in all the Phoenix launch pics but not on the rocket.
My artwork was on the launch tower! It's circled in red. Click
to see larger version. |
The Phoenix Logo
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My Phoenix Launch Trip Pics, August, 2007 |
Click to see larger versions of my
Phoenix launch trip pics, Aug. 2007
The Phoenix Team in Tucson
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Peter Smith's Laboratory
Dr. Peter Smith, is the Phoenix PI,
or Principal Investigator. He lead the Phoenix program, which
is managed by the University of Arizona for NASA. JPL is working
very closely with his team which is located in Tucson, Arizona
at the Phoenix Mars Lander Science Operations Center, where I
took this picture in February, 2007, on my way home from Lockheed
Martin in Denver (see below). Peter Smith is very tall and also
very friendly. So it was especially fun seeing him that day just
before he was interviewed by the Discovery Channel. It brought
to mind all the fun associations of what it means to be a scientist,
you get to wear a white lab coat and do things like organize
a big-budget expedition to the North Pole of Mars where your
own robot will reach out and touch the first water on another
world. No wonder he's so happy in this picture!
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I enjoyed a quick tour of the Phoenix
SOC (Science Operations Center) in Tucson, Arizona, February,
2007. Everyone knew who I was - "the Phoenix artist"
- and I got to see my artwork being used there, not just as wall
posters but also on an amazing Phoenix Countdown Clock near the
visitors entrance. It was thrilling to see my images being used
like that. |
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Visiting Phoenix at
Lockheed Martin Space Systems
in Denver, Feb. 2007
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I was very fortunate to be invited to
go and see the Phoenix Mars Lander up close - it was a
beautiful & complex sight. Human ingenuity
stretched to the limits. Well worth the price I paid for my own
trip to fly to snowy Denver and put on a clean room "bunny
suit" and walk right up to Phoenix. It was unbelievably
cool. I needed to see Phoenix in person so I could create the
best possible artwork, at least that was the excuse I used! |
Gallery: My pictures of the Phoenix Mars Lander in
the clean room |
Highly Recommended!
A remarkable story that is partly
illustrated with my Phoenix artwork but all the credit goes to
Steve the Cat's owner, who created it. |
Phoenix Mars Lander Mug
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Phoenix Mars Lander mugs with 3 of my
images were available at the JPL store. |
Origin of the Phoenix Mission
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The failed 1998 Mars Polar
Lander |
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The cancelled 2001 Mars Surveyor
Lander |
Above: The two spacecraft
that were combined into the Phoenix in a side-by-side comparison.
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The Phoenix mission was actually a reincarnation
of the cancelled 2001
Mars Surveyor lander and the failed
Mars
Polar Lander. The lander body is from
the 2001 Lander, literally, and it's been combined with the lost
science instruments of the Mars Polar Lander. The name comes
from the mythical Phoenix bird, a creature that could be reborn. |
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Phoenix won a competiton
to be the first Mars Scout
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Click on my artist
concepts to learn more. |
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In 2003, NASA Headquarters decided
to send the Phoenix Mars Lander after careful consideration of
many possible missions for the 2007 launch opportunity. It was
a "competed mission", pitting rival NASA rival centers
and university teams against other. I was surprised and pleased
when Phoenix won - my artwork was featured in the press release.
The "winning cover" image of Phoenix is seen above
with the other competitors.
NASA decided to "follow the
water" that the 2001 Mars Odyssey had just discovered back
then. So a lander that could dig up ice and analyze it was a
great choice. That's exactly what Mars Scout missions are for
- to follow-up on new discoveries. |
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