Evening, On 02 Aug 2007, at 13:30, Chuck Hards wrote:
Patrick, (or anyone in the know) is the Phoenix lander a single craft, or is NASA sending a pair of them to hedge their bet?
It's a single mission. I guess the government can't afford to "hedge their bets" anymore (at least not where NASA is concerned). Speaking of dual missions, does anyone here remember Mariner _8_ (not 9)?
The airbag method seems to have a much better track record.
That got asked about in one of my NASA training sessions. Basically the spacecraft are getting too massive to land with airbags.
Also I have questions on the retros possibly affecting some of the chemical/biological test results.
One of the mission scientists blogged about that. See here: http://foreleast.lpl.arizona.edu/blogsPost.php?bID=102
Let's hope everyone is using the same units of measure this time, and all sensors have been installed correctly...
Go metric! :)