Weekend Watch Mars Landing Countdown

It looks like NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander will reach Mars this evening. The confirmation will be back to Earth by 4:53 p.m. PST today.

Mission controllers decided early Sunday not to use the last possible time for a trajectory correction maneuver, eight hours before landing.

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.
Follow events throughout the day on NASA TV and the Phoenix landing blog. You can follow the progress on Twitter HERE! .

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