May 25 2008
From The Space Library
Ernst Stuhlinger, one of the original members of Wernher von Braun’s rocket team, died at his home in Huntsville, Alabama, at the age of 94. The U.S.government had brought the team to the United States after World War II. Stuhlinger, Associate Director of Science on von Braun’s team, was an expert in spacecraft guidance and navigation instruments. Stuhlinger had also made important contributions in the field of propulsion. He had developed an innovative second-stage firing device for Explorer 1 in his garage, becoming renowned for having pressed the button that triggered that device at exactly the right moment during the satellite’s 1958 launch. Before his retirement in 1975, Stuhlinger had served as Director of Science at NASA’s MSFC. He was author of the 1964 book, Ion Propulsion for Space Flight and co-author of the 1993 biography Werner von Braun: Crusader for Space.
John Noble Wilford, “Ernst Stuhlinger, Rocket Scientist Crucial in Space Race, Is Dead at 94,” New York Times, 28 May 2008; Martin Weil, “Ernst Stuhlinger, 94; Space Program Pioneer,” Washington Post, 27 May 2008.
NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft made a successful landing in the Martian northern polar region, beginning a three-month mission to burrow into the soil of Mars in search of water ice and carbon-based compounds. Phoenix had launched on 4 August 2007 and had completed a 422- million-mile (679.14- kilometer) journey to reach Mars. Phoenix was the sixth spacecraft to land safely on Mars and the first craft since the 1976 Viking 2 to land without airbags. The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, was 7 feet (2.13 meters) tall and weighed 904 pounds (410.05 kilograms). It contained seven scientific instruments, including cameras, small chemistry labs, an 8-foot-long (2.44-meter-long) robotic arm, and a weather station. The Phoenix mission, which cost US$457 million, would be the first to collect water samples on another planet. The University of Arizona was leading the mission, in partnership with NASA’s JPL and Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributors to the mission included CSA; the University of Copenhagen and the University of Aarhus, both in Denmark; the [Max Planck Institute]] in Germany; the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
NASA, “NASA’s Phoenix Spacecraft Lands at Martian Artic Site,” news release JLP2008-081, 25 May 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/may/HQ_JPL2008-081_Phoenix.html (accessed 16 March 2001); John Johnson Jr., “NASA’s Phoenix Spacecraft Is Ready To Get Its Hands Dirty on Mars,” Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2008; Mark Carreau, “Soft Landing on a Rough Mars Terrain,” Houston Chronicle, 26 May 2008.
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