An overflow crowd of thousands were in rapt attention here on the University of Arizona campus, as they watched the NASA Television coverage of the successful Phoenix Landing. It has been really amazing to see so many people gathered in support of their mission. It was literally standing room only here at the Charles P. Sonett space sciences building that hosts HiROC. There was actually a line to get into the Kuiper space sciences building, and another one for the Flandrau planetarium, while another crowd gathered out on the university Mall, and possibly another group down at the campus bookstore. People began watching attentively at all of these locations starting around an hour before touchdown. Tucson really showed its support for Phoenix today. People actually took down (carefully!) a large hanging mural so they could watch the display from outside the glass window of our building. I could tell that things were going well by the occasional outbursts of applause.

When Peter Smith gave enthusiastic shout outs to the UofA community and to Arizona, the crowd erupted in responsive applause. Congratulations to the Phoenix team and especially to those working on EDL at JPL in Pasadena and Lockheed in Denver.