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This entry was posted on Wed, November 12th, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

@MarsPhoenix You will be missed…

Posted: November 12, 2008
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Author: Adam
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Filed under: Geek Tech, Web 2.0
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Tags: No tags set for this entry.

As a current internet dork and a past space program dork this story caught my interest and attention. For those who don’t know the scoop; the Phoenix Mars Lander was able to assemble a substantial following of online users, wanting to hear updates about its mission, using popular social media platform, Twitter. This was cool because people could “follow” what was happening with the Phoenix rover from their Twitter feed. Here are some example tweets,

“MarsPhoenix I can’t pass up Talk Like a Pirate Day just because I’m on M-AAAAARs! Now it’s back back to work digging for treasure. Arrr!“

“MarsPhoenix Succeeded in moving that rock about 16 in/40 cm. Here’s a pic of the rock named “headless” after the move: http://tinyurl.com/3umhu3 “

“MarsPhoenix 01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000 <3″ (binary for “Triumph”)

It’s really quite clever because the tweets had a similar writing style, tone, and behavior as normal twitter chatter only these tweets were coming from Veronica McGregor, a former CNN NASA correspondent, with the personification of the Phoenix Mars Lander. Not only would @MarsPhoenix announce what was doing, he sent out @replies, posted links to pictures using TinyURL.com, announced airing times of TV shows related to other Rovers and would even link to his own blog! http://gizmodo.com/tag/phoenix-mars-lander/

I find this really cool because missions like this and the current happenings over at NASA used to make prime time news, but since modern mainstream media seems to be more concerned with what kind of dog the new first family is getting and less about the space program its nice to see some exposure in the not-so-mainstream media. There was even an iPhone application available for keeping tabs on the robo-martian.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. According to WIRED, after collecting valuable samples, confirmed to be containing water, and working 2 months over its 3 month expected lifespan, “The lander has run out of power for its internal heater and is presumed to be frozen on the arctic plain… At this time, we’re pretty convinced that the vehicle is no longer available for us to use.” Too bad Phoenix, @MarsPhoenix you have served us well, thanks for all the hard work and great correspondence.

*The lander’s last tweet is listed as the third example above.