[meteorite-list] Phoenix Completes Longest Work Shift

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:44:52 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200807230044.RAA28361_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1800

Phoenix Completes Longest Work Shift
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
July 22, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Phoenix early Tuesday finished its longest work shift
of the mission. The lander stayed awake for 33 hours, completing tasks
that included rasping and scraping by the robotic arm, in addition to
atmosphere observations in coordination with simultaneous observations
by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

"Our rasping test yesterday gave us enough confidence that we're now
planning for the next use of the rasp to be for acquiring a sample to be
delivered to TEGA," said Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein of
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. TEGA is Phoenix's
Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, an instrument that heats samples in
small ovens and uses a mass spectrometer to study the vapors driven off
by the heating.

As preparation for that sample delivery in coming days, the Phoenix team
developed plans to command the lander Tuesday evening to conduct 80
scrapings of the bottom of a trench informally named "Snow White." The
scraping is designed to freshly expose frozen material and ready the
surface for using the rasp.

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 Tue 22 Jul 2008 08:44:52 PM PDT