Quote Originally Posted by Alextanium View Post
They build the landers with complete autonomy in mind - they fly and land themselves.

The entire landing sequence takes 7 minutes from start to finish, but the time it takes for light to get from Earth to Mars is 10 minutes. By the time we got the signal that it had started its entry, it would have been over 3 minutes already.

Also, they're receiving telemetry from the craft every step of the way: just on a 10 minute delay. They're still 'seeing' the craft land, just not in real time.
Ah... my bad with the time there. I read that the Phoenix Spacecraft went on a "422 million mile journey." I assumed that was the total distance (where I got 40 minutes from). But still, why wouldn't the spacecraft go directly to Mars which is much less distance?

I figured it must've had to land by itself... that's pretty nifty I must say.