The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has snapped a stunning picture of Phoenix, in the act of descending, with its high-resolution (HiRise) instrument, mission scientists announced at a press conference Monday morning at JPL in California. “This is a spectacular image, this is an engineer’s delight,” said Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein. “I was very skeptical that this was possible.”

Goldstein didn’t know exactly the stage Phoenix was at when the photo was taken, but said it must have occurred after the parachute opened 10 kilometers above the surface, and before it was ejected at one kilometer before landing.

The picture was taken during the martian day, with the sun almost directly to the rear of MRO. MRO was orbiting at an altitude of 300 kilometers, but Phoenix was 760 kilometers away. It was because of this oblique view – MRO looking through miles and miles of hazy atmosphere – that the surface appears dark, fuzzy and streaky, said HiRise PI Alfred McEwen in Tucson. But the white of the parachute, lander backshell, and cords connecting the two was plenty bright enough for HiRise to detect. “Seeing the cords connecting the two, it’s completely unambiguous,” McEwen said.

McEwen said the decision to try and take the snap – with an estimated 80% chance of success – was fairly last-minute, incorporated into plans only in the last few weeks. “They were very hesitant to do anything new, because they perceived it as risk,” he said. The imperative was MRO’s UHF radio link to Phoenix, so engineers didn’t want any other instruments on the orbiter, such as HiRise, causing potential electromagnetic interference.

But in the end, the potential for a successful snap to document a failed landing was too important. A deployed parachute in a bad landing would mean that the fault lay elsewhere. “That was the argument that won the day,” McEwen said.

McEwen said another set of HiRise photos, taken today of the surface, appear to show some parts of the landing site. McEwen said his team thinks they have spotted the parachute and the backshell, but not yet the lander itself.

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona