For the other Pixies that peek up........... NO! not skirts .... into the sky, and has interests in what is happening NOW.

Here are a couple links interest, information and monitoring sources.
The next few hours will be meaningful and exciting for some and important to everyone.

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/tl_entry1.html
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasa...V_Breaking.html


About now, the mission team will be preparing the spacecraft for communications during entry, descent, and landing. Spirit's cruise stage switches from its medium-gain antenna (which requires pointing toward Earth), to its low-gain antenna, which does not need to be pointed as precisely for the Deep Space Network antennas to pick up the signal. This switch slows the rate of data transmission, but is necessary to allow communications to continue when the spacecraft changes its orientation to point its heat shield forward.

There will be six REAL exciting minutes that I’ll let you know about. LOL

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I've been keeping track of this in my capacity as the local astronomy society president. Just means I shall have to say something about it at the next meeting as well.

See what weird things you find out about people...

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Pashkin, the Panther
Observer & Connoisseur of the Female Form
A re-introduction

MY LIVEJOURNAL

It's Me & Myself in graphic detail!

Pixies' Eminent Astronomer & Meteorologist at Hull & East Riding Astronomy Society

Should be an interesting morning for you too then.

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And a long one! What with the Cowboys/Panthers game I am following and this mission as well, I shall have to spend rest of today asleep...? <yawn>

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Pashkin, the Panther
Observer & Connoisseur of the Female Form
A re-introduction

MY LIVEJOURNAL

It's Me & Myself in graphic detail!

Pixies' Eminent Astronomer & Meteorologist at Hull & East Riding Astronomy Society

I am open minded to any findings on Mars! To know if life existed at one time there.

Step Two: Spacecraft Rotates
A few minutes after 7 pm PST, [03:00 GMT] the spacecraft carrying Spirit will rotate to face its heat shield forward for its final approach.

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Apart from Pixies, i haven't seen a great deal of life on earth yet!

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Pashkin, the Panther
Observer & Connoisseur of the Female Form
A re-introduction

MY LIVEJOURNAL

It's Me & Myself in graphic detail!

Pixies' Eminent Astronomer & Meteorologist at Hull & East Riding Astronomy Society

LOL, understandable!!!

Step Three: Transmission of Tones Begins
About 20:15 PST [04:15 GMT], Spirit will begin transmitting tones back to Earth that indicate the spacecraft's status. A low-gain antenna on the spacecraft's backshell begins transmitting simple "tones" (sustained radio frequencies coded to report the spacecraft's status). These tones give Spirit a way to keep communicating after the cruise stage is jettisoned. A dictionary of about 100 possible tones can provide information such as whether the cruise stage has separated, whether the parachute opens, and whether the deceleration rate is within the expected range.
From here on out, it’s gets very busy for the next half hour.

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Step Four: Cruise Stage Separates
As the tones begin, the cruise stage separation commences. This separation is the first stage the rover takes in shedding more than half of the spacecraft in which it has been warmly traveling during its 302.6 million mile journey through the frigid temperatures of space.

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Step Five: Spirit enters the martian atmosphere
"Six Minutes of Terror"
About 20:29PST [04:29GMT], one of the most challenging aspects of the mission begins. In only six minutes, the spacecraft will slow down from 12,000 to 0 miles per hour.
The lander should come streaking in through the martian atmosphere, going about 12,000 miles per hour. Given atmospheric friction, the outside surface of the heat shield will be as hot as the surface of the sun (1,447 degrees Celsius, or 2,637 degrees Fahrenheit), but the rover will be protected by the heat shield and will stay at about room temperature inside the lander. The heat shield also aerodynamically acts as the first "brake" for the spacecraft, slowing Spirit down by thousands of miles per hour.

This is the equivalent to us driving at a speed of 100 MHP and coming to a complete stop in 3 seconds, only it goes on for 6 minutes.

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Step Six: Parachute Deploys
About four minutes later, the spacecraft slows to about 1,000 miles per hour and is only 30,000 feet above the martian surface. At this point, a supersonic parachute is deployed. The parachute is based on the designs and experience of those used in the Viking and Pathfinder missions. The parachute for this mission is about 40% larger than Pathfinder's, and is made of two durable lightweight fabrics (polyester and nylon). <---- silky stuff makes everything work

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Step Seven: Heat Shield Jettisons
Twenty seconds after the chute deploys, the heat shield's work is complete, and it separates from the lander.

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Step Eight: Lander Separates
Ten seconds after the heat shield jettisons, the lander separates from the back shell and descends to the end of a "bridle", or tether. Spirit's altitude is about 20,000 feet at this point. The lander "rappels" down a Zylon tape on a centrifugal braking system built into one of the lander petals. The slow descent down the Zylon tape places the lander in position at the end of another bridle, which is made of a nearly 20-meter-long (65-foot-long) braided Zylon, an advanced fiber material similar to Kevlar. The Zylon bridle provides space for airbag deployment, distance from the solid rocket motor exhaust stream, and increased stability. The bridle incorporates an electrical harness that allows the firing of the solid rockets from the backshell, as well as provides data from the backshell inertial measurement unit (which measures rate and tilt of the spacecraft) to the flight computer in the rover.

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Step Nine: Radar Ground Acquisition Begins
Around 20:34PST [04:34GMT], when the lander is about 8,000 feet above the surface, radar systems on the lander determine its altitude and vertical velocity relative to the martian surface. These measurements will help the landing system decide how long to fire the retro rockets to bring the lander's verticle speed close to zero

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