[meteorite-list] Public Invited to UA's Phoenix Mars Mission Open House Oct. 21

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Oct 11 20:48:32 2006
Message-ID: <200610120048.RAA12686_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/7/wa/SRStoryDetails?ArticleID=13200

Public Invited to UA's Phoenix Mars Mission Open House Oct. 21
University of Arizona
October 11, 2006

N O T A E

Contact Information
Andrew Shaner
(520) 626-9661
ashaner_at_as.arizona.edu

Maria Schuchardt
(520) 621-4861
mariams_at_lpl.arizona.edu

Related Web site(s)
Phoenix Mars Mission <http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu>

The University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) will open
the doors to everyone who wants to tour the Phoenix Mars Mission science
operations center from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21.

The LPL's Phoenix Mission center in Tucson will be the base of science
operations for NASA's next mission to the Red Planet. The Phoenix Mars
Lander will be launched in August 2007 for a May 2008 touchdown. After
the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasasdena, Calif., flies the
spacecraft to Mars and verifies that the landed spacecraft is healthy,
NASA will turn mission control over to UA in Tucson. The UA is the first
university ever to lead a mission to Mars. LPL senior scientist Peter H.
Smith is principal investigator.

The Phoenix Mars Mission will be the first lander ever to dig beneath
Martian polar surface in search of water ice, clues to climate change,
and habitat that might support life.

The payload includes a nearly eight-foot long robotic arm for digging
down through soil into ice, a robotic arm camera, a surface stereo
camera, a descent camera, a meteorological station, a high-temperature
furnace and mass spectrometer, a powerful atomic force microscope and a
miniature wet chemistry laboratory.

Smith will demonstrate some engineering models of these instruments on
the full-scale mock lander in the Mars-like "PIT" (Payload
Interoperability Testbed) at the top of every hour from 11 a.m. to 3
p.m. on Saturday.

Far from being a mere showpiece, the PIT and mock lander are important
parts of the Phoenix Mission. Not only are engineers using the mock
lander on its Mars-looking platform to test instruments and commands,
scientists will practice operations in the PIT before performing them
for real on Mars.

Visitors also will see areas where mission specialists will upload
commands that control lander science instruments, receive data from
their experiments, and plan the next day's exploration strategies during
the 3-month or longer mission. Tours will be given every 20 minutes
starting at 10 a.m., with the last tour starting at 3:30 p.m.

Open house events and displays also include:

    * New images from the UA's powerful Mars-orbiting HiRISE camera,
      including images of candidate landing sites for the Phoenix lander.
    * An exhibit about the Phoenix Mission prepared by the Pima Air and
      Space Museum
    * Scale models of NASA spacecraft currently orbiting Mars, the Mars
      Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Phoenix lander
      communications with Earth will depend on these orbiters.
    * A dazzling meteorite display by LPL's Southwest Meteorite Center.
      This UA center, also located in the Phoenix Mission building, is
      dedicated to preserving, curating and analyzing meteorites, as
      well as promoting meteorite education for all.

Children are welcome to enjoy samples of liquid nitrogen-made ice cream
(while supplies last), enter to win door prizes that include a Hot
Wheels model of a Mars Rover, and test out a jumping castle located near
the back of the facility near the parking lot.

LPL's Phoenix center open house coincides with the UA's 2006 Family
Weekend. Free shuttle service will be provided between campus and the
Phoenix operations center. The shuttle will depart from the UA Student
Union Circle every half hour starting at 10 a.m.

Parking is available at Pima Community College's Downtown Campus west
parking lot, at the Mabel Street and 10th Ave. intersection. The Phoenix
Mission Science Operations Center, at 6th Ave. and Drachman, is a short
walk from the college.

The $385 million Phoenix Mission is the first mission in NASA's "Scout"
program. UA leads the mission with project management at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership with Lockheed Martin
Space Systems. International contributions for Phoenix are provided by
the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland),
the University of Copenhagen, and the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

Like its namesake, Phoenix "rises from the ashes," carrying the legacies
of two earlier attempts to explore Mars. The 2008 mission uses the
lander originally built for the 2001 Mars Surveyor lander, before the
mission was canceled in 2000. And it carries improved versions of many
of the scientific instruments designed for the Mars Polar Lander, which
failed to land successfully at Mars' south pole in 1999.

(UA Space Grant intern Angela Poulson contributed to this news release)
Received on Wed 11 Oct 2006 08:48:29 PM PDT