Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

It's so much fun to watch these events and so great to see the joy on the faces of all of the people who have worked so hard to make this effort a success.

Champagne corks popping.

Sounds like Phoenix is sitting almost perfectly level on the ground. 1/4 degree tilt, oriented almost perfectly East x West.

It couldn't have gone any better. "Never even in reversal did it go this well."

Final critical data will be in a few minute when we get confirmation of the solar arrays deployment.

update: post touchdown systems poll coming up at 5:30. We should get information on all the primary systems with that.

Com reports nominal
Thermal reports nominal
ACE reports nominal - Flight phase (obviously) over and "damn near perfection"
Attitude reports nominal
Flight Software reports nominal
EDL Trajectory reports parachute deploy 7 seconds later than nominal, supporting the "long". From there on down event times agree with nominal trajectory
Navigation reports nominal. Entry flightpath was well within bounds. Sigma insignificant. Plotted lat/long and it is "long" but within the suspected bounds.
EDL Com reports nominal. Signals via Odyssey and direct to earth. No plasma blackout. Neither DTE nor Odyssey has seen any signal since touchdown plus one minute.
Mission Manager everything looks nominal.

update2: We're waiting to see the solar arrays deployed and the first photos from Phoenix. Those photos will be mostly covering craft health and positioning.

update3: UHF link via Odyssey now up. Images and data should be coming in shortly.

6:52 Solar arrays probably out given early power data. No images yet.
6:54 First images in showing both solar arrays fully deployed, footpads on solid ground, and more.

Sweet! That's Firefox they're using to look over the first photographs.

photos!!

first mosaics!!