Posted on July 8, 2008, at 11:39 pm .
NASA MISSION UPDATE
8 July 2008
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s science and engineering teams are testing methods to get an icy sample into the Robotic Arm scoop for delivery to the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA).
Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, Phoenix’s “dig czar,” said the hard Martian surface that Phoenix has reached proved to be a difficult target, comparing the process to scraping a sidewalk.
“We have three tools on the scoop to help access ice and icy soil,” Arvidson said. “We can scoop material with the backhoe using the front titanium blade; we can scrape the surface with the tungsten carbide secondary blade on the bottom of the scoop; and we can use a high-speed rasp that comes out of a slot at the back of the scoop.”
“We expected ice and icy soil to be very strong because of the cold temperatures. It certainly looks like this is the case and we are getting ready to use the rasp to generate the fine icy soil and ice particles needed for delivery to TEGA,” he said.
Continue reading ‘Phoenix Tests Methods to Get Icy Sample’
Posted on June 28, 2008, at 4:27 pm .
NASA MISSION UPDATE
26 June 2008
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander performed its first wet chemistry experiment on Martian soil flawlessly yesterday, returning a wealth of data that for Phoenix scientists was like winning the lottery.
“We are awash in chemistry data,” said Michael Hecht of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA, instrument on Phoenix. “We’re trying to understand what is the chemistry of wet soil on Mars, what’s dissolved in it, how acidic or alkaline it is. With the results we received from Phoenix yesterday, we could begin to tell what aspects of the soil might support life.”
“This is the first wet-chemical analysis ever done on Mars or any planet, other than Earth,” said Phoenix co-investigator Sam Kounaves of Tufts University, science lead for the wet chemistry investigation.
About 80 percent of Phoenix’s first, two-day wet chemistry experiment is now complete. Phoenix has three more wet-chemistry cells for use later in the mission.
Continue reading ‘Phoenix Update: Scientists OD on Chemical Data’
Posted on June 19, 2008, at 8:55 am .
NASA MISSION UPDATE
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander began digging in an area called “Wonderland” early Tuesday, taking its first scoop of soil from a polygonal surface feature within the “national park” region that mission scientists have been preserving for science.
The lander’s Robotic Arm created the new test trench called “Snow White” on June 17, the 22nd Martian day, or sol, after the Phoenix spacecraft landed on May 25. Newly planned science activities will resume no earlier than Sol 24 as engineers look into how the spacecraft is handling larger than expected amounts of data.
During Tuesday’s dig, the arm didn’t reach the hard white material, possibly ice, that Phoenix exposed previously in the first trench it dug into the Martian soil.
Continue reading ‘Mars Update: Phoenix Joins Alice in “Wonderland”’
Posted on June 19, 2008, at 8:28 am .
ODYSSEY MOON PRESS RELEASE
Washington, DC – Odyssey Moon, a commercial lunar enterprise, announced today that former NASA Associate Administrator Dr. Alan Stern has accepted a role with the Isle of Man-based company. Dr. Stern was a recognized engine of change and innovation as chief of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, championing new science programs while being a stalwart advocate of cost and value control when he served at NASA.
Dr. Stern has joined the Odyssey Moon executive team on an exclusive part time consulting basis as the company’s Science Mission Director, part of a new diversified career focus spanning many of his lifelong interests and activities. He expects that his blended understanding of science and business will help Odyssey Moon establish a commercial lunar business while pursuing the $30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE. “I am a fan of public-private partnerships and building bridges to new markets,†he said. “I believe we are on the verge of a whole new era of space exploration and that the private sector can provide reliable cost effective services that can increase the value and leverage government space budgets.â€
A veteran of space exploration with over 25 year experience, Stern’s alliance with the private space sector comes at a critical time when NASA and other space agencies are looking carefully at the value proposition in partnering with the commercial sector for space activities.
Continue reading ‘Former NASA AA Alan Stern Joins Google Lunar X Prize Team Odyssey Moon’
Posted on June 12, 2008, at 11:49 pm .
NASA MISSION UPDATE
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkled a spoonful of Martian soil Wednesday onto the sample wheel of the spacecraft’s robotic microscope station, images received early Thursday confirmed.
“It looks like a light dusting and that’s just what we wanted. The Robotic Arm team did a great job,” said Michael Hecht of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He is the lead scientist for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) instrument on Phoenix.
The delivery of scooped-up soil for inspection by the lander’s Optical Microscope, a component of MECA, marks the second success in consecutive days for getting samples delivered to laboratory instruments on Phoenix’s deck. Some soil from an earlier scoopful reached a tiny oven in another instrument on Tuesday, as confirmed in data received early Wednesday. That instrument is the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. Commands being sent to Phoenix today include instructions to close TEGA oven number 4 and begin analyzing the sample inside, a process that will take several days.
Continue reading ‘Mars Update: Phoenix Sprinkles Soil for Microscopic Analysis’
Posted on June 11, 2008, at 8:50 pm .
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager took this image on Sol 14 (June 8, 2008), the 14th Martian day after landing. It shows two trenches dug by Phoenix’s Robotic Arm. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University
NASA MISSION UPDATE
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.
Continue reading ‘Mars Update: Phoenix Has Oven Full of Soil’
Posted on June 5, 2008, at 7:39 pm .
This image shows a 3 millimeter (0.12 inch) diameter silicone target after it has been exposed to dust kicked up by the landing. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
NASA PRESS RELEASE
TUCSON, Ariz. — A microscope on NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander has taken images of dust and sand particles with the greatest resolution ever returned from another planet.
The mission’s Optical Microscope observed particles that had fallen onto an exposed surface, revealing grains as small as one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.
“We have images showing the diversity of mineralogy on Mars at a scale that is unprecedented in planetary exploration,” said Michael Hecht of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. He is the lead scientist for Phoenix’s Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) instrument suite.
Meanwhile, Phoenix received commands Thursday to collect its first soil sample to be delivered to a laboratory instrument on the lander deck. Commands for that same activity sent on Wednesday did not reach Phoenix because the orbiter intended for relaying the transmission, NASA’s Mars Odyssey, had put itself into a safe standby mode shortly before the commands would have reached Odyssey.
Continue reading ‘Mars: Yep, it’s Dusty, All Right!’
Posted on June 2, 2008, at 10:26 pm .
NASA MISSION UPDATE
One week after landing on far-northern Mars, NASA Phoenix spacecraft lifted its first scoop of Martian soil as a test of the lander’s Robotic Arm.
The practice scoop was emptied onto a designated dump area on the ground after the Robotic Arm Camera photographed the soil inside the scoop. The Phoenix team plans to have the arm deliver its next scoopful, later this week, to an instrument that heats and sniffs the sample to identify ingredients.
A glint of bright material appears in the scooped up soil and in the hole from which it came. “That bright material might be ice or salt. We’re eager to do testing of the next three surface samples collected nearby to learn more about it,” said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, Phoenix co-investigator for the Robotic Arm.
The camera on the arm examined the lander’s first scoop of Martian soil. “The camera has its own red, green and blue lights, and we combine separate images taken with different illumination to create color images,” said the University of Arizona’s Pat Woida, senior engineer on the Phoenix team.
Posted on June 1, 2008, at 10:59 pm .
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander left behind a Yeti-like “footprint” on Mars in its first successful attempt to touch the planet’s frozen surface on Saturday. The mark so reminded NASA officials of the mythical snow beast that they actually named the spot…..wait for it….Yeti. Features and locations around the Phoenix lander are being named for fairy tale and mythological characters.
“This first touch allows us to utilize the Robotic Arm accurately. We are in a good situation for the upcoming sample acquisition and transfer,” said David Spencer, Phoenix’s surface mission manager from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
One hopes the image doesn’t become fodder for conspiracy theorists who believe that NASA is covering up evidence of life on Mars, or is faking the mission in an abandoned quarry in the Northwest where Bigfoot roams. (Remember, you heard that here first….)
Posted on June 1, 2008, at 10:31 pm .
A photo shows the underside of the Phoenix lander and what appears to be exposed surface ice.
NASA PRESS RELEASE
A view of the ground underneath NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander adds to evidence that descent thrusters dispersed overlying soil and exposed a harder substrate that may be ice.
The image received Friday night from the spacecraft’s Robotic Arm Camera shows patches of smooth and level surfaces beneath the thrusters.
“This suggests we have an ice table under a thin layer of loose soil,” said the lead scientist for the Robotic Arm Camera, Horst Uwe Keller of Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany.
“We were expecting to find ice within two to six inches of the surface,” said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for Phoenix. “The thrusters have excavated two to six inches and, sure enough, we see something that looks like ice. It’s not impossible that it’s something else, but our leading interpretation is ice.”
Continue reading ‘Phoenix Finds Ice Near Martian North Pole; Discovery Deemed “Absolutely Astounding”’
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