The Phoenix has landed, and with it, a little bit of Beltsville, Md., successfully made the trip to the Red Planet.
Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, was responsible for producing the next-generation solar panels that power the Martian lander, heat shields, the extending, coilable boom that returned its first pictures of the Martian surface, and other equipment to assist NASA?s Mars Phoenix Mission.
“We were … waiting with bated breath for the lander to come down,” said ATK spokesman Bryce Hallowell. “The solar arrays that were on the Phoenix Lander are a new breed, and they?re the same arrays that are going to be on the Orion [manned] spacecraft.”
The Phoenix Mission was developed to search for underground water and signs of life on Mars as a prelude to a possible future manned mission. NASA?s Orion space capsule is being developed to meet the agency?s goals of returning astronauts to the moon and sending the first people to Mars.
ATK?s Space Systems subsidiary in Beltsville developed the round Ultraflex Solar Arrays that power Phoenix. Manufactured in Goleta, Calif., they unfold like an umbrella, as opposed to traditional rectangular solar panels that power the International Space Station and other satellites.
“It?s a brand-new technology and it worked just as designed,” Halloway said. The arrays are more compact and rugged than rectangular panels.
Each Ultraflex array unfolds like an Oriental fan into a circular shape 2.1 meters in diameter, according to an ATK release. On Earth they would generate 770 watts of power from sunlight. Since Mars is approximately 1.5 times farther from the sun, the solar arrays will produce less than half that wattage.
NASA has already photographed the lander?s descent by parachute as well as the landing site, arrays deployed, as seen by another craft ? the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The Phoenix Lander was designed to dig for frozen water under the Martian topsoil, down to 20 inches, according to NASA?s Web site. The craft will use sophisticated instruments to analyze the mineral and water content of those samples.
Discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 showed large amounts of subsurface water ice in the northern arctic plain.
Launched in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission is the first in NASA?s Scout Program.
ATK is a premier aerospace and defense company with more than 17,000 employees in 21 states and $4.5 billion in revenue. The company produces small Earth satellites and solid rocket engines, including the Delta 2, which launched the Phoenix Lander.
