[meteorite-list] Phoenix Mars Lander Continues Tests with Rasp

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:16:18 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200807190216.TAA18001_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1794

Nasa's Phoenix Mars Lander Continues Tests with Rasp
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
July 18, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The team operating NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander plans to
tell the lander today to do a second, larger test of using a motorized
rasp to produce and gather shavings of frozen ground.

The planned test is a preparation for putting a similar sample into one
of Phoenix's laboratory ovens in coming days. The instrument with the
oven, the Thermal and Evolved- Gas Analyzer (TEGA), will be used to
check whether the hard layer exposed in a shallow trench is indeed rich
in water ice, as scientists expect, and to identify some other
ingredients in the frozen soil.

The rasp flings some of the shavings that it produces directly into an
opening on the back of the scoop at the end of the lander's robotic arm.
The test planned for today differs in several ways from the first test
of the rasp on Mars, on July 15.

"First, we will scrape the terrain before rasping, to expose fresh
terrain for sampling," said Richard Volpe of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., an engineer for the Phoenix robotic arm
team. "Second, we will rasp four times in a row, twice the amount
previously.Third, the scoop blade will be run across the rasp holes to
pick up as much of the tailings as possible."

The test area is in the bottom of a trench about 5 centimeters (2
inches) deep, informally named "Snow White," which is also the planned
site for acquiring an icy sample for the TEGA instrument. The team wants
to be sure to be able to collect and deliver the sample quickly, and
early in the Martian morning, in order to minimize the amount of ice
lost to vaporization before the material is sealed into the oven.
Today's plans include using the Robotic Arm Camera to check repeatedly
for any changes in the collected sample during seven hours after getting
it into the scoop.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of 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; 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.


Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond at lpl.arizona.edu

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov
Received on Fri 18 Jul 2008 10:16:18 PM PDT