The Software of the Mars Phoenix Lander

Go here to read an interview about the software used on the Mars lander: http://news.oreilly.com/2008/07/the-software-behind-the-mars-p.html

"In cruise, we had contact about every three days for eight hours. During EDL, we had continuous contact for about I don't know 24-48 hours. Maybe it was longer than that. I'm not really sure. On the surface, we get at least two passes, two full communications passes a day. We actually get passes about every two hours during nighttime operations. The spacecraft has to wake up every couple of hours and verify its power state, and sometimes there's a communications pass associated with that. Generally in terms of command ability and getting science data back, we do two or three passes a day."

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php

Space Is the Place

Here's some pictures taken of Mars and from Mars and of the Earth and Moon. Follow the link!: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/martian_skies.html



Here's a pretty recent radio image of the Milky Way Galaxy. Follow the link to read about it and view the images that were compiled: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2008-11/release.shtml