The fun won’t be more than for the University of Arizona when batteries in favour of the school-led Phoenix Mars Lander fail and its computers dead in one’s tracks up in the Martian arctic after its three-month mission ends.
With the permanent Science Operations Center now built in Tucson, Arizona — and the recognition that comes as the first university to lead a mission to another planet — school officials say the Phoenix is just beginning to pay dividends.
The long-term affect of the mission will be to draw dollars, talent and renown to the university as well as to make it a permanent player in space exploration.
Peter Smith, who leads the Phoenix team as its principal investigator, summed up the mission’s importance to the University of Arizona in one word: "prestige."
"The university is trying to become a world-class research complex b conveniences," Smith said. "Having a mission like this — returning some really formidable science about an unexplored region of Mars — that puts us on the map."
While the university works to build its reputation, the Science Operations Center where university scientists authority over the mission is exactly on the map — permanently. The center gives the university a platform to lead future missions, said Michael Drake, director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
From: rss.cnn.com
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