[meteorite-list] NASA Phoenix Mars Lander Puts Arm and Other Tools to Work

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 14:46:56 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200805292146.OAA04988_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-089

NASA Phoenix Mars Lander Puts Arm and Other Tools to Work
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 29, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. - NASA's Mars lander is returning more detailed images
from the Martian surface and is now preparing its instruments for
science operations.

Phoenix transmitted a 360-degree panorama of its frigid Martian world,
freed its nearly 8-foot robotic arm, tested a laser instrument for
studying dust and clouds, and transmitted its second weather report on
Wednesday evening.

"We've imaged the entire landing site, all 360 degrees of it. We see it
all," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith, University of
Arizona, Tucson. "You can see the lander in a fish-eye view that goes
all the way out to the entire horizon "We are now making plans for where
to dig first, and what we'll save for later."

Commands were communicated to Phoenix to rotate the robotic arm's wrist
to unlatch its launch lock, raise the forearm and move it upright to
release the elbow restraint.

"We're pleased that we successfully unstowed the robotic arm. In fact,
this is the first time we have moved the arm in about a year," said
Matthew Robinson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The arm deployment brings the Phoenix mission to a significant milestone.

"We have achieved all of our engineering characterization prerequisites,
with all the critical deployments behind us," said JPL's Barry
Goldstein, Phoenix project manager. "We're now at a phase of the mission
where we're characterizing the science payload instruments. That's a
very important step for us."

After a health check that tests the arm at a range of warmer and colder
temperatures, the titanium and aluminum arm will soon be tasked with its
first assignment: to use its camera to look under the spacecraft to
assess the terrain and underside of the lander.

The robotic arm will later trench into the icy layers of northern polar
Mars and deliver samples to instruments that will analyze what this part
of Mars is made of, what its water is like, and whether it is or has
ever been a possible habitat for life.

Another milestone for the mission included the activation of the laser
instrument called light detection and ranging instrument, or lidar.

"The Canadians are walking on moonbeams. It's a huge achievement for
us," said Jim Whiteway Canadian Science lead from York University,
Toronto. The lidar is a critical component of Phoenix's weather station,
provided by the Canadian Space Agency. The instrument is designed to
detect dust, clouds and fog by emitting rapid pulses of green laser-like
light into the atmosphere. The light bounces off particles and is
reflected back to a telescope.

"One of the main challenges we faced was to deliver the lidar from the
test lab in Ottawa, Canada, to Mars while maintaining its alignment
within one one-hundredth of a degree," said Whiteway. "That's like
aiming a laser pointer at a baseball at a distance from home plate to
the center field wall, holding that aim steady after launch for a year
in space, then landing," he added.

Lidar data shows dust aloft to a height of 3.5 kilometers (2 miles). The
weather at the Phoenix landing site on the second day following landing
was sunny with moderate dust, with a high of minus 30 degrees Celsius
(minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit) and a low of minus 80 (minus 112 degrees
Fahrenheit).

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at 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, Switzerland; 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 .

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

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

2008-089
Received on Thu 29 May 2008 05:46:56 PM PDT