* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: The Phoenix lander

Blobrana · L

NASAs Mars Lander encountered some difficulties over the weekend, related to its robotic arm.
According to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, after being instructed to move in a certain manner that would have damaged its wrist, the robotic arm identified the danger and shut itself down in order to avoid a malfunction.

Read more

Blobrana · L

A powered rasp on the back of the robotic arm scoop of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is being tested for the first time on Mars in gathering sample shavings of ice.
The lander has used its arm in recent days to clear away loose soil from a subsurface layer of hard-frozen material and create a large enough area to use the motorised rasp in a trench informally named "Snow White."

Read more

Blobrana · L

The Mars Phoenix lander is having a difficult time digging through the tough ice at the planet's north pole to collect a usable ice sample for analysis, mission scientists say.
In fact, they compared the digging to scraping a pavement.

Read more

Blobrana · L

This series of six images from the Robotic Arm Camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander records the first time that the four spikes of the lander's thermal and electrical conductivity probe were inserted into Martian soil.
This image was taken on July 8, 2008, during the Phoenix mission's 43rd Martian day, or sol, since landing. The insertion visible from the shadows cast on the ground on that sol was a validation test of the procedure. The spikes on the probe are about 1.5 centimetres or half an inch long.
The science team will use the probe tool to assess how easily heat and electricity move through the soil from one spike to another. Such measurements can provide information about frozen or unfrozen water in the soil. The probe is mounted on the "knuckle" of Phoenix's Robotic Arm. It has already been used for assessing water vapour in the atmosphere when it is held above the ground.

Expand (257kb, 1024 x 768)
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute

Blobrana · L

Phoenix Mars Lander used its robotic arm to deliver a second sample of soil for analysis by the spacecraft's wet chemistry laboratory, data received from Phoenix on Sunday night confirmed.
Test results will be compared in coming days to the results from the first Martian soil analysed by the wet chemistry laboratory two weeks ago. That laboratory is part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyser.
The main activity on the lander's schedule for today is testing a method for scraping up a sample of icy material and getting it into the scoop at the end of the robotic arm. Photography before, during and after the process will allow evaluation of this method. If the test goes well, the science team plans to use this method for gathering the next sample to be delivered to Phoenix's bake-and-sniff instrument, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyser.

Read more

Blobrana · L

The U.S. space agency says the next sample of Martian soil to be analysed by the Phoenix Mars Lander might be its last.
A team of National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers and scientists who assessed the spacecraft's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyser, or TEGA, after a short circuit was discovered last month has concluded another short circuit could occur when the oven is again used.

Read more

Blobrana · L

Tests show the resulting mud to have a slightly alkaline pH level of between 8 and 9, comparable to sea water and favouring asparagus and the like (but, sadly for Martian tennis fans, not strawberries).
Read more

Blobrana · L

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander enlarged the "Snow White" trench and scraped up little piles of icy soil on Saturday, June 28, the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Read more

Blobrana · L

Phoenix does not have the tools for a thorough investigation of current life on Mars.
We are investigating whether there is at least the potential there. By contrast, over 30 years ago the two Viking landers each carried a set of four experiments on board designed specifically to detect life on the Red Planet.
Read more