very, very, cool

Is it landing about 6:00pm our time?

Yes, a little before then. Here's the schedule:

(Don't be fooled by the following being in central time. It really starts about 5:30 our time. )

'MARS PHOENIX LANDER' TIMELINE times Central

NOTE: Navigational adjustments before Sunday could shift times by up to ~ 30 seconds. Mars event times are listed in "Earth-receive time" (ERT) rather than "spacecraft event time" (SCET). This means the listed time incorporates the interval for radio signals traveling at the speed of light to reach Earth from Mars. On Sunday the two planets are 171 million miles apart (275 million kilometers), which means it takes the signal 15 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth. For some spacecraft events, engineers will not receive immediate radio confirmation.

Saturday May 24

2:00 p.m. NASA TV: Landing preview press briefing

9:46 p.m. Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity

Sunday May 25

10:46 a.m. Trajectory correction maneuver opportunity

2:00 p.m. NASA TV: Mars Phoenix Lander briefing

5:30 p.m. NASA TV: "Live" coverage Mars Phoenix Lander Landing

6:16 p.m. Propulsion system pressurization

6:38 p.m. Begin "bent-pipe" data transmission relay through

Mars Odyssey craft to Goldstone Deep Space Network station

6:38 p.m. Green Bank, WV, radio telescope listening for direct UHF signal

6:39 p.m. Cruise stage separation

6:40 p.m. Spacecraft turns to attitude for atmospheric entry

633 p.m. Spacecraft enters atmosphere (Altitude 77 miles / 12,527 mph)

655 p.m. Peak heating (time approximate)

(Likely blackout period from 6:47 – 6:49 p.m.)

615 p.m. Parachute deploys (plus or minus about 13 seconds - 7.8 miles)

630 p.m. Heat shield jettisoned (plus or minus about 13 seconds - 6.8 miles / 268 mph)

640 p.m. Legs deploy (plus or minus about 13 seconds)

630 p.m. Radar activated

609 p.m. Lander separation (plus or minus about 46 seconds - 3,215 feet / 125 mph)

(Transmission gap for switch to helix antenna from 608 to 614 p.m.)

612 p.m. Descent thrusters throttle up

634 p.m. Constant-velocity phase starts (plus or minus about 46 seconds)

652 p.m. TOUCHDOWN (plus or minus about 46 seconds)

652 p.m. Lander radio off (plus or minus about 46 seconds)

7:13 p.m. Begin opening solar arrays (during radio silence)

7:28 p.m. Begin NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter playback of Phoenix

transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing

(data for analysis not ready until several hours later)

7:30 p.m. Begin Europe's Mars Express spacecraft playback of Phoenix

transmissions recorded during entry, descent and landing

(data for analysis not ready until several hours later)

7:30 p.m. Post-landing poll of subsystem teams about spacecraft status

8:43 p.m. Mars Odyssey "bent-pipe" relay of transmission from Phoenix, with

engineering data and possibly including first images. Data could

take up to ~30 additional minutes in pipeline before being accessible.

If all goes well, live television feed from control room may show first images as they are received. The first images to be taken after landing will be of solar arrays, to check deployment status.

11:00 p.m. NASA TV: Post landing press briefing - First Downlink of Data

Thanks Adrian... live now on the big screen in the living room... well, 15 minutes and some delayed from Mars... and mostly showing mission control.

Warren

Woo HOO!

Phoenix has landed.

Watched it live... well, watched a bunch of nervous people at consoles suddenly jump up and down screaming "WooHOO!!!"

Nice when we get it right... Lots of hugs going on in Mission Control.

Warren

Deployment of the solar arrays is the next critical event. Fingers crossed. This is the first flight use of the Ultraflex solar arrays, the same design (though smaller) as the ones in the Orion design.

Should only be a few minutes before we know... then the first image... of the solar arrays. Once we get that, I can go out for dinner and a beer.

Warren

It's looking like a complete success so far. I couldn't be happier for those guys. A lot of them are the same folks who worked with me on the failed Mars Polar Lander in 1998, which was a very similar design. Most of the hardware flown today was actually built and getting tested when MPL failed. Both landers were designed and built here in Denver at the Waterton Canyon facility, and it was devastating when MPL failed. In the aftermath I went to California and ended up working on the Mars Exploration Rovers, so I got my own taste of victory. I'm glad that the rest of the folks working here in Denver got to experience it also. It was so cool when they were counting down the altitude during the descent, because it meant that the landing radar was working, and the rover was sending radio telemetry back to Earth via Mars Odyssey orbiter as it plummeted toward the ground.

I helped out a little bit with this one too, convincing the program to use the same electrical power analysis model that I helped develop for for MER. So I'm looking forward to hearing how the power system is doing. It was great to see the pictures with the solar arrays out. With the lander sitting safely on the surface with the arrays out, it's almost certain to survive through its primary mission.