Yesterday was the 3-year anniversary of MRO’s launch. A number of people on our team sent MRO birthday wishes over email; here’s a blog card, too.

If spacecraft ages are like cat ages (and I don’t really know why they would be…), MRO is 28 in human years. That actually sounds about right to me – the mission has matured to the point where things are fairly routine (although there are always exceptions!), we’re past the difficult teenage-angst period, and we’re (hopefully!) wiser now about the way we do things, with many life lessons learned. But we’re not “over the hill” yet! In fact, we’re really in our prime right now.

In honor of this date, here’s a present – a video of the MRO launch: a smaller .ram version for Real Player (2 KB) or a larger .mov version for QuickTime (5.4 MB).

Tomorrow is the first launch opportunity for our sister mission, Phoenix. We don’t have a lot of day-to-day interaction with the Phoenix project, because their building is located a ways off-campus. It’s hard not to feel some camaraderie with them, though. Not only did HiRISE image a lot of possible landing sites, the mission is based right here in our department at the U of A.

If you aren’t super-excited about Phoenix yet, just try and not get excited by this awesome trailer they put together! (Alternate formats are available here, and on youtube, of course.) I was completely enthralled. It’s got everything — action, suspense, an emotional back-story, a totally Hollywood time-lapse mega-zoom to a night launch scene, and a rockin’ soundtrack!

The whole Phoenix website is fabulous, too, if you haven’t seen it yet.

Launches are risky times, and we’re all nervous and excited for Phoenix. All our best wishes go with it as it leaves this planet!