* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: The Phoenix lander

Blobrana · L

NASA's Phoenix lander wasn't able to take its first scientific sample of the Mars soil on Wednesday because of another communications glitch.

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Blobrana · L

The Phoenix Mars Lander, now only nine days into its breakthrough mission, is already causing scientists to buzz about what it has found. Images taken by Phoenix and relayed back to Earth show what appears to be a chunk of solid ice at the landing site. Scientists didnt confirm the presence of ice at a briefing on Tuesday, but since ice is the reason the $420 million mission was launched, researchers certainly are hoping the Phoenix was lucky enough to stumble upon some.

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Blobrana · L

Mission planners with the UA-led Phoenix Mars lander gave the spacecraft an extra day to dig around in the red planet's dirt Tuesday, after they weren't satisfied with the results of an earlier test.
The lander's robotic arm initially was scheduled to carve out a series of soil samples that would be placed in on-board experiments, but the plan changed when scientists and engineers got back pictures and data from the arm's earlier dig, said Peter Smith, the mission's lead scientist.

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Blobrana · L

NASA and The University of Arizona will hold a televised news briefing on Wednesday, June 4, at 16:00 GMT (2 p.m. EDT), to present the latest news from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which touched down on the Red Planet on May 25.
The briefing will take place at the UA's Science Operations Centre, and will be carried live on NASA TV's Media Channel.

www.nasa.gov/ntv

Source: University of Arizona

Blobrana · L

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" - Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, Phoenix co-investigator for the Robotic Arm.

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Martian Soil Inside Phoenix's Robotic Arm Scoop

This image from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Robotic Arm Camera (RAC) shows material from the Martian surface captured by the Robotic Arm (RA) scoop during its first test dig and dump on the seventh Martian day of the mission, or Sol 7 (June 1, 2008). The test sample shown was taken from the digging area informally known as "Knave of Hearts."

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Blobrana · L

University of Michigan simulations correctly predicted that the pulsed jets of the Mars Phoenix lander would strip the soil to the subsurface ice or rock as the craft touched down.
Photos of the area beneath the craft on Friday revealed a hard surface that scientists say may be ice. It could also be rock, and researchers won't know until the Phoenix can dig into the dirt. But it's clear the craft cleared away soil as it landed.

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Blobrana · L

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

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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.

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-- Edited by Blobrana at 21:14, 2008-06-01

Blobrana · L

A bolt from the Lander?

Credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona

Blobrana · L

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona

The Phoenix landing pad and `bolt`.