Live From Mars was active July 1996-December 1997.
JULY 1:
There's a "veteran" here and there, like Project Manager Tony
Spear. But Matt Golombek, project scientist, Rob Manning (flight system --
meaning the spacecraft on its way to Mars -- chief engineer) and Richard
Cook, mission manager, are a new generation. Their briefing is upbeat:
things have gone well to date. And listening to Matt Golombek review the
science that can be done, the excitement builds in the audience.
For 21 years after
the Viking spacecraft arrived at Mars, humans have not gone back to the
Red Planet -- at least successfully. There've been at least two
Russian failures and one American. Listening to the engineers, you
wonder, how can Pathfinder possibly have its parachute and airbags
inflate, its retrorockets fire, on cue -- after
seven months in space? Sitting in the audience, watching camera men dance
around the full-size model on its painted drop cloth with rust-red rocks,
I can't help feeling nervous, more nervous than the Pathfinder team, it
seems.
Later that afternoon we are on the last tour of Mission Control
before the area is buttoned up for the landing, set for three days hence.
It's pretty empty:
JULY 2
Jennifer Harris, flight director for Sol 1, is busy
monitoring spacecraft data. One sign reads: OBJECTS ON THE
CALENDAR ARE CLOSER THEN THEY APPEAR. True for Pathfinder, and true also
for our upcoming live two-hour special. Like the spacecraft, we also rely
on satellite dishes and there are 101 things to go wrong. Also
like Pathfinder we rely on a team of hard working people.
But hearing that it's only 40-50 people who "fly" Pathfinder, it seems an
amazing accomplishment, almost more impressive than the hundreds of people
it's taken to fly previous missions.
Out on the mall area, nestled between the buildings at JPL, is evidence of
what the spacecraft's really like: a huge cluster of airbags, like a giant
bunch of grapes, shows what the spacecraft is going to look like when it
bounces down on the surface.
It's an amazing time to be at an amazing place.
JULY 3
Today the press conference is once more upbeat: but it's followed by one
involving NASA Administrator Dan Goldin. "People have to be grown-up
enough to understand that bold things, like Pathfinder, run risks. I want
my people to try, and if they fail, learn from their
mistakes and try again." It's a frank statement, but it matches
Matt Golombek's blunt reponse to a press question: "We
don't think any dust storm (something talked about in the media in the
past few days) will deposit enough dust to impair the mission." He cites
Viking data: crisp, even blunt, unlike the polite replies to oddball press
questions served up by many others. It's as if the entire team is trimmed
down to fitting weight, no time for anything other than facts.
But amid the seriousness, there's some time for fun and human
feelings. Early on July 3, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) team march en
masse to the Mars Pathfinder offices. There are red and blue balloons
for nearly everyone in sight! Glenn Cunningham, on behalf of MGS,
presents large framed posters to Tony Spear and others. MGS's time
will come. Now it's Pathfinder that's on the front-burner.
JULY 4
10:00 a.m., Pacific: The first briefing of what should be landing day.
Overnight, the team looked at Pathfinder's position and realized there
was no need for a trajectory correction maneuver: they were within 45
kilometers of where they needed to be, close to some higher features
which, navigator Pieter Kallemeyn said, made the planetary geologists
happy. Rough enough to be interesting, gentle enough not to trouble the
spacecraft. Maybe. Probably. Within 3.5 hours the spacecraft should be
on the surface. For some of the team, like Pieter, their job is almost
done. For others, the excitement's just beginning, with what they hope
will be days of rover operations on the surface.
Downtown the Planetary Society's PlanetFest starts off as a huge
success, people thronging everywhere. A large-screen projection system
brings in NASA-TV, and people sit expectantly, listening to the
blow-by-blow coverage of the mission. Upstairs, I try and time my
presentation on "Live from Mars" to the actual landing. I run the
sequence showing what should happen over Mars at just the same time as
the flight plan calls for the events to happen. For almost a year I've
been using the wonderful NASA/Georgia Tech animation. It's hard to
believe that it's now happening -- for real -- on Mars.
Back at JPL -- SUCCESS! The DSN captures a radio signal that Pathfinder
has safely met the surface. In the press room managers and reporters alike
cheer. It's a national holiday for most of Americans, but for
JPL, Pathfinder's arrival is celebration enough. The red rockets over
Mars are the pyrotechnics which have obviously worked to bring this
ambitious spacecraft to the surface. Fireworks on the Red Planet! Now,
a wait till 2:07 p.m., Pacific until the first real data are expected.
SPECIAL REPORT: Behind the scenes for Pathfinder's landing on Mars
The Days Before Landing
Geoff Haines-Stiles
July 4
Inside JPL's Von
Karman Auditorium, with the mighty Voyager spacecraft lined up to left,
it's the first Pathfinder press conference. The first thing you notice
about the Pathfinder mission team is how young so many of them are.