Phoenix Mars Lander: Mission ends after 125 Sols

[JonathanBelles]

The rover has hit its first snag When they tried to extend the robotic arm and uncover it, the covering snagged on the elbow joint. Its going to take most of today to figure out how to fix it.

[HURAKAN]

Phoenix Spotted from Above
05.27.08 -- The butterfly-like object in this picture is NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, as seen from above by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[HURAKAN]

Weather Report for Mars Sol 1



Skies were clear and sunny on Sol 1 on Mars. The temperature varied between minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit in the early morning and minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon. The average pressure was 8.55 millibars, which is less than a 1/100th of the sea level pressure on Earth.

The weather station was activated in the first hour after landing on Mars. Measurements are being recorded continuously.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. The Canadian Space Agency contributed Phoenix's meteorological station. The University of Aarhus in Denmark contributed the telltale on the meteorology mast.

Image Canadian Space Agency/University of Aarhus

[HURAKAN]

This image has been posted in connection with a Phoenix Mars Lander news briefing on May 27, 2008.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.

[JonathanBelles]

One more glitch. The MRO did not send commands to move the robotic arm today, however it did send back images of Phoenix.

[lurkey]

twitter updates -- http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix -- in the first person!!!!

[Cyclenall]

I'm glad my country was the one who provided the weather station.

So can this weather station be the confirmed first time in history weather records are being kept on another planet? This is pretty funny. Soon a database of information will be set up.

[HURAKAN]

Hard Substrate, Possibly Ice, Uncovered Under the Mars Lander

The Robotic Arm Camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander captured this image underneath the lander on the fifth Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Descent thrusters on the bottom of the lander are visible at the top of the image.

This view from the north side of the lander toward the southern leg shows smooth surfaces cleared from overlying soil by the rocket exhaust during landing. One exposed edge of the underlying material was seen in Sol 4 images, but the newer image reveals a greater extent of it. The abundance of excavated smooth and level surfaces adds evidence to a hypothesis that the underlying material is an ice table covered by a thin blanket of soil.

The bright-looking surface material in the center, where the image is partly overexposed may not be inherently brighter than the foreground material in shadow.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech//University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute

[JonathanBelles]

Quite a neat image here dubbed Yeti:

[lurkey]

iTunes U adds Phoenix Mars Mission movies
by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld.com Jun 2, 2008 4:22 pm

The Phoenix mission, led by the University of Arizona on behalf of NASA, has been in the news quite a bit lately, but with all the coverage of the mission you may be wondering where to go to get multimedia content — well wonder no more.

The university is adding free movies to iTunes U, a part of the iTunes Store made available by Apple to educational institutions. The movies range in length from just over one minute to almost 50 minutes.

The spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral on August 4, 2007 and landed on May 25, 2008. Phoenix will examine the ice on Mars’ nothern plains to see if the planet could be a habitable environment.

[HURAKAN]

Highest Resolution Image of Dust and Sand Yet Acquired on Mars



This mosaic of four side-by-side microscope images (one a color composite) was acquired by the Optical Microscope, a part of the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) instrument suite on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. Taken on the ninth Martian day of the mission, or Sol 9 (June 3, 2008), the image shows a 3 millimeter (0.12 inch) diameter silicone target after it has been exposed to dust kicked up by the landing. It is the highest resolution image of dust and sand ever acquired on Mars. The silicone substrate provides a sticky surface for holding the particles to be examined by the microscope.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

[HURAKAN]

Link: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoen ... index.html

[HURAKAN]

Mars Phoenix Flunks First Big Dig
Bob Christie, Associated Press

June 7, 2008 -- The first sample of Martian dirt dumped onto the opening of the Phoenix lander's tiny testing oven failed to reach the instrument, and scientists said Saturday they will devote a few days to trying to determine the cause.

Photos released by the University of Arizona team overseeing the mission showed a scoopful of dirt sitting on and around the open oven door after being dumped by the craft's 8-foot robot arm. But none of it made it past a screen and into the tiny chamber, one of eight on the craft designed to heat soil and test gasses for signs of water or organic compounds that could be building blocks for life.

Nothing seems to be wrong with the dirt delivery by the lander's robot arm, said William Boynton of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who is overseeing the oven experiments. The dirt landed properly and instruments show a vibrator on the screen designed to help shake soil into the chamber was working.

However, an electronic eye positioned to detect dirt falling into the chamber didn't report any particles.

"We think everything is working correctly, although we don't really know for sure," Boynton said Saturday in a teleconference news briefing from Tucson. "We're a little bit concerned about this but we have some other things to check out."

The teams overseeing the experiments plan to spend the next several days going over possible reasons for the apparent failure, Boynton said.

It could be that the dirt is too dense or compacted to make it past the screen, which is there to allow only small particles into the oven. Or, it could be that incorrect readings from the vibrator made it look like it was working when it was not.

Even if this oven turns out to be unusable, the seven other ovens would be available for the mission's primary experiments.

In the meantime, scientists will turn their attention to using the arm's backhoe-like arm to take close-up photos of the surface and do additional digging.

Phoenix landed in Mars' northern plains on May 25 for a three-month mission. It is not a rover like some Mars missions, and its instruments cannot directly detect past or present life.

The $420 million mission is being overseen by the University of Arizona, with support from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

[JonathanBelles]

SUCCESS!!!

NASA's Phoenix Lander has an Oven Full of Martian Soil
06.11.08

TUCSON, Ariz. - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has filled its first oven with Martian soil. "We have an oven full," Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said today. "It took 10 seconds to fill the oven. The ground moved."

Boynton leads the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA, for Phoenix. The instrument has eight separate tiny ovens to bake and sniff the soil to assess its volatile ingredients, such as water.

The lander's Robotic Arm delivered a partial scoopful of clumpy soil from a trench informally called "Baby Bear" to the number 4 oven on TEGA last Friday, June 6, which was 12 days after landing.

A screen covers each of TEGA's eight ovens. The screen is to prevent larger bits of soil from clogging the narrow port to each oven so that fine particles fill the oven cavity, which is no wider than a pencil lead. Each TEGA chute also has a whirligig mechanism that vibrates the screen to help shake small particles through.

Only a few particles got through when the screen on oven number 4 was vibrated on June 6, 8 and 9.

Boynton said that the oven might have filled because of the cumulative effects of all the vibrating, or because of changes in the soil's cohesiveness as it sat for days on the top of the screen.

"There's something very unusual about this soil, from a place on Mars we've never been before," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "We're interested in learning what sort of chemical and mineral activity has caused the particles to clump and stick together."

Plans prepared by the Phoenix team for the lander's activities on Thursday, June 12 include sprinkling Martian soil on the delivery port for the spacecraft's Optical Microscope and taking additional portions of a high-resolution color panorama of the lander's surroundings.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix and http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

[HURAKAN]

Early Spring Dust Storms at the North Pole of Mars

Early spring typically brings dust storms to northern polar Mars. As the north polar cap begins to thaw, the temperature difference between the cold frost region and recently thawed surface results in swirling winds. The choppy dust clouds of at least three dust storms are visible in this mosaic of images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in 2002. The white polar cap is frozen carbon dioxide.

Image NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

[lurkey]

MarsPhoenix: Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!

this is getting creepy . .


http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/news.php

Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice
June 19, 2008 Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" when Phoenix's Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

Also early today, digging in a different trench, the Robotic Arm connected with a hard surface that has scientists excited about the prospect of next uncovering an icy layer.

The Phoenix science team spent Thursday analyzing new images and data successfully returned from the lander earlier in the day.

[HURAKAN]

These images were acquired by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 18, 2008).

These images show sublimation of ice in the trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" over the course of four days.

In the lower left corner, lumps disappear, similar to the process of evaporation.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

Link: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoen ... 14060.html

[HURAKAN]

NASA Phoenix Mars Lander Confirms Frozen Water

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Scientists relishing confirmation of water ice near the surface beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander anticipate even bigger discoveries from the robotic mission in the weeks ahead.

"It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and not some other substance," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, during a Friday news briefing to announce the confirmation of water ice.

"The truth we're looking for is not just looking at ice. It is in finding out the minerals, chemicals and hopefully the organic materials associated with these discoveries," said Smith

The mission has the right instruments for analyzing soil and ice to determine whether the local environment just below the surface of far-northern Mars has ever been favorable for microbial life. Key factors are whether the water ever becomes available as a liquid and whether organic compounds are present that could provide chemical building blocks and energy for life. Phoenix landed on May 25 for a Mars surface mission planned to last for three months.

"These latest developments are a major accomplishment and validation of the Mars Program's 'follow-the-water' exploration framework," said Doug McCuistion at NASA Headquarters, Washington, director of the space agency's Mars Program. "This specific discovery is the result of an outstanding team working with a robust spacecraft that has allowed them to work ahead of their original science schedule."

The key new evidence is that chunks of bright material exposed by digging on June 15 and still present on June 16 had vaporized by June 19. "This tells us we've got water ice within reach of the arm, which means we can continue this investigation with the tools we brought with us," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, lead scientist for Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager camera. He said the disappearing chunks could not have been carbon-dioxide ice at the local temperatures because that material would not have been stable for even one day as a solid.

The disappearing chunks were in a trench to the northwest of the lander. A hard material, possibly more ice, but darker than the bright material in the first trench, has been detected in a second trench, to the northeast of the lander. Scientists plan next to have Phoenix collect and analyze surface soil from a third trench near the second one, and later to mechanically probe and sample the hard layer.

"We have in our ice-attack arsenal backhoeing, scraping and rasping, and we'll try all of these," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, lead scientist for Phoenix's Robotic Arm.

Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, reported that an issue reported earlier this week related to producing thousands of duplicate copies of some file-maintenance data files has been diagnosed, and a corrective software patch will be sent to Phoenix within a few days. Science operations continue in the meantime, though all data collected must be relayed to Earth on the same Martian day it is collected, instead of being stored to non-volatile memory when Phoenix powers down to conserve energy during the Martian night.

Images sent back Friday morning from Mars showed that the doors to the Number 5 oven on the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer opened part way. The instrument team is working to understand the consequences of this action.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, located in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix and http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

[HURAKAN]

Phoenix Carries Soil to Wet Chemistry Lab



This image taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows the lander's Robotic Arm scoop positioned over the Wet Chemistry Lab delivery funnel on Sol 29, the 29th Martian day after landing, or June 24, 2008. The soil will be delivered to the instrument on Sol 30.

This image has been enhanced to brighten the scene.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

[lurkey]

MarsPhoenix: Sci team reports "Martian mud"
in the wet chem experiment contains nutrients
and is alkaline, 8 to 9 on pH scale! It's "friendly" dirt.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Puts Soil in Chemistry Lab, Team Discusses Next Steps
June 25, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander placed a sample of Martian soil in the spacecraft's wet chemistry laboratory today for the first time. Results from that instrument, part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, are expected to provide the first measurement of the acidity or alkalinity of the planet's soil.

The analysis of this soil sample and others will help researchers determine whether ice beneath the soil ever has melted, and whether the soil has other qualities favorable for life.

The Phoenix team is discussing what sample to deliver next to the lander's other analytical instrument, which bakes and sniffs soil to identify volatile ingredients. Engineers have identified possible problems in the mechanical and electrical operation of that instrument, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.

Scientists are studying information provided by TEGA's analysis of the first Martian soil sample put in that instrument. The instrument has eight single-use oven cells; each cell can analyze one sample. When doors for a second TEGA oven were commanded open last week, the doors opened only partway. Later, the team determined that mechanical interference may prevent doors on that oven and three others from opening fully. The remaining three ovens are expected to have one door that opens fully and one that opens partially, as was the case with the first oven used.

"The tests we have done in our test facility during the past few days show the robotic arm can deliver the simulated Martian soil through the opening with the doors in this configuration," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, lead scientist for TEGA. "We plan to save the cells where doors can open wider for accepting ice samples."

Scientists believe the first soil sample delivered to TEGA was so clumpy that soil particles clogged a screen over the opening. Four days of vibration eventually succeeded at getting the soil through the screen. However, engineers believe the use of a motor to create the vibration may also have caused a short circuit in wiring near that oven. Concern about triggering other short circuits has prompted the Phoenix team to be cautious about the use of other TEGA oven cells.

Subsequent soil samples for TEGA will be delivered with a different method than the first. The new method will sprinkle soil into the instrument to make it easier for particles to get through the screens.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the development partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions are from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.