This artist's montage shows NASA's Phoenix spacecraft en route to and landing on Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona
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May 25, 2008
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander will reach Mars this evening with no further adjustments to its flight path. Mission controllers decided early Sunday not to use the last possible time for a trajectory correction maneuver, eight hours before landing.
The first possible time for confirmation that Phoenix has landed will be at 4:53 p.m. Pacific Time today. The landing would have happened 15 minutes earlier on Mars, but radio signals take 15 minutes to travel from Mars to Earth at the distance separating the two planets today, 171 million miles.
You can also follow landing events throughout the day on NASA TV and on the Phoenix landing blog at www.nasa.gov/phoenixblog .
Media contacts: Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
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