Category: Mars

I’m not sure what you were expecting, but here’s the first image captured by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander from space. What, you were expecting blackness and maybe a star or two? Nope, this is a photo taken by the lander’s robotic arm showing its scoop nestled inside the spacecraft. But don’t worry, in just a few months, you’ll be seeing the same picture, but filled with Martian soil.

The image was captured by the lander’s Robotic Arm Camera, which was pointed into the robotic arm’s scoop. Both instruments are encased in a protective biobarrier that insures Earth-based microbes don’t contaminate its experiments. Surprisingly, this is going to be the only picture the camera is going to take before the spacecraft lands on Mars. I guess, this same shot might get a little boring.

Once it reaches Mars, the spacecraft will use this robotic arm to dig trenches in the Martian polar soil. It’ll scoop up soil and water-ice samples, and then deliver them to several instruments on the lander’s deck. These will test the samples for water, chemicals, and even the byproducts of past or present life.

The camera that took this picture is attached to the robotic arm, just above the scoop. It’ll provide close up images of the Martian surface, and help scientists decide where they’re going to dig for samples.

Original Source: UA News Release

Time really flies. It’s already been a month since NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander blasted off for the Red Planet, so I’m sure you’re wondering, how’s the spacecraft faring up so far? Pretty good actually. The Phoenix flight operations team recently checked in with the spacecraft, and made sure its most crucial instruments (well, for the landing anyway) are working properly.

Phoenix Mars Lander launched on August 4, 2007 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral, and won’t arrive at Mars until May 25, 2008. During its entire journey, the spacecraft is communicating back to Earth using a high frequency X-band transmitter. This transmitter is only temporary, however. Once the spacecraft arrives at Mars, it’ll jettison a portion of the spacecraft – where this transmitter is located – and from then on out, it’ll be relying on its UHF radio.

When landing day arrives, this radio absolutely has to be working.

Another instrument that needs to be working is its landing radar. This instrument will be constantly measuring the distance to ground as the spacecraft passes through the Martian atmosphere. A whole string of activities rely on the spacecraft being able to accurately gauge its distance to the ground for the last 3 minutes of its descent.

So, NASA tested them out. The flight operations team tested the UHF radio and its landing radar on August 24th, and made sure they were working properly. The radio won’t be turned on again until landing day on May 25th, 2008. The team also tested out one of the spacecraft’s science experiments, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, which will look for water and carbon-containing molecules in the icy soil at its landing site at the Martian north pole. More tests of other instruments are planned for October.

Mars Phoenix Lander has already traveled more than 81 million km (50 million miles). That sounds like a lot, and it is, but the spacecraft still has another 600 million km to go.

“Everything is going as planned. No surprises, but this is one of those times when boring is good,” said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

That’s good, it’s boring now, but it’s going to be insane on May 25th… I can’t wait.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

After being threatened by darkening dust storms, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers are ready to hit the road again. Both Spirit and Opportunity still face dusty skies, but they’re getting enough light through to their solar panels that they’re able to spare some battery power to start driving.

On August 21st, Opportunity moved ahead 13.38 metres (44 feet) towards the edge of Victoria Crater. This is the large impact crater that the rover has been studying for the last few months. Its next big job will be to work its way down a ramp into the crater, observing the layered rock as it descends. The crater serves as a time machine, allowing Opportunity to measure rock that was deposited during periods when the planet was much younger. The hope, of course, is for Opportunity to discover periods when the region was acted upon by water for long spans of time.

Opportunity’s total power supply reached 300 watt-hours on August 23, which is twice what it received 5 weeks ago. It’s enough to move and communicate, but mission controllers want it to get back into the 600+ watt-hour range that it had several months ago. If it wanted to, Opportunity could run a 100 watt light bulb for 3 hours.

The rover has been driven towards the rim of Victoria crater to put it at a favourable angle, pointing its solar panels towards the Sun. That way if further dust accumulates on its solar panels, it’ll still be able to generate enough power. But gusts of wind have actually been clearing off the panels, giving it more and more power each day.

To see what the rovers faced during the dust storms, check out this link to a Cornell University article. It has animations of the Sun each day, so you can see there was a long span in July when Opportunity couldn’t see the Sun at all.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Remember those amazing images of open pits on Mars? NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has come back around and taken another image of one of the features, and this time it spotted a wall on one side. This wall indicates that these “pits” are probably tunnels, similar to surface features on Earth called “pit craters”.

The new images were captured with the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE), the most powerful camera ever to orbit another planet. It first noticed the features on May 5th, 2007. In its original image, MRO captured a photo from almost directly overhead, and saw only darkness. This time around, on August 8th, it captured the image from the west, when the Sun was also shining at an angle, revealing a wall on the eastern side of the pit.

The rim of the pit is 150 by 157 metres across. And the new image shows that the depth is at least 78 metres deep.

Here on Earth, you can find pit craters in Hawaii, around the Kilauea Volcano. They’re circular-shaped craters that are believed to form when a magma lake empties out underneath. The crusty top then collapses down forming a bowl shaped crater. For example, here’s a link to an image of a pit crater in Hawaii.

This isn’t the first time that pit craters have been seen on Mars. For example, here’s another image captured by HiRISE of pits along the floor of Cyane Fossae, a set of fissures between the giant volcanoes Olympus Mons and Alba Patera. These fissures formed when the surface of Mars was being stretched by volcanic activity, causing underground voids to collapse. But these are much shallower than the newly discovered “pit”.

New Scientist is covering this story from the angle that these pits could serve a refuge for astronauts, protecting them from the dangerous ultraviolet radiation streaming from the Sun. Unlike the Earth, Mars has no protective ozone layer that blocks ultraviolet radiation. These pits could provide a wall of nice protective dirt, assuming they remain in the shadows.

I’m sure we’ll hear more on this story in the weeks and months to come. It’s very exciting.

Original Source: University of Arizona News Release

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander is right on schedule for its 2008 visit with the Red Planet. But between now and then, it’s got some work to do. Late last week it completed its first task, performing a course correction to bring into a perfect trajectory to reach Mars; it has 5 more to do over the course of the mission.

Phoenix is currently hurtling towards Mars at a velocity of about 33,180 metres per second (74,200 mph) in relation to the Sun. This first trajectory maneuver tweaked its velocity by about 18.5 metres per second (41 mph). The spacecraft fired its four thrusters for a total of 3 minutes and 17 seconds to make the adjustment.

It sounds like everything went according to plan. According to Joe Guinn, Phoenix mission system manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “all the subsystems are functioning as expected with few deviations from predicted performance.” Yeah… what he said.

The next intentional course correction is scheduled for mid-October.

Believe it or not, Phoenix was launched on an incorrect trajectory intentionally. Without these course corrections, the spacecraft would miss Mars by about 950,000 km (590,000 miles). This was done so that the spacecraft’s third-stage rocket booster won’t hit Mars. With the intentional incorrect trajectory, the third stage will sail by the Red Planet, while Phoenix can still enter its atmosphere. The lander is carefully cleaned to ensure no bacteria reach the Martian surface, while the booster remains contaminated with Earth’s bacteria. We wouldn’t want to infect Mars with our life.

Original Source: NASA News Release