Phoenix has announced on its Twitter feed that it’s likely at the end of its mission. They haven’t heard from the lander in over a week at this point, and it’s not looking very hopeful that they’ll have enough power to do so in the next few weeks before we go into conjunction.

The last image we took of the lander shows it sitting pretty, just as it has been since May 25th. We’ll take another picture this week, and probably continue to monitor the site after conjunction to study how frost covers the area. Next spring, MRO will be listening to see if Phoenix wakes up and calls home, but the odds of that are exceedingly slim, despite its epithet (see this blog entry for more about why this is most likely the real end of the mission).

I didn’t think I’d be so sad! It has been an exciting and successful mission, and I’m glad I could be involved in a small part of it. RIP, Phoenix! …or, rather, one of the better-written epitaphs submitted in Wired’s contest to eulogize the mission. There are some great ones in that list – some clever, some heartwarming, and some just funny. Personally, I like Phoenix’s last tweet best:

01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000 <3

(Unless you’re also a machine, you’ll probably need a binary converter like this one to get the message.)