Posted by tourdemars to Phoenix Lander at July 22, 2008 02:08 PM

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander pulled an all-nighter for the first time Monday. Mission controllers extended the spacecraft's schedule to keep it awake during the Martian night so the lander could coordinate with observations made by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) as it flew over Phoenix. Phoenix is using its weather station (which measures temperature, wind speed and wind direction), stereo camera and fork-like thermal and conductivity probe to monitor changes in the lower atmosphere and at the surface of Mars as MRO monitors the atmosphere and ground from above.