Phoenix craft to dig under Mars ice (landing planned 25 May)

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The Phoenix spacecraft is set to land on Mars on May 25, using a parachute and retro-rockets to reach a level plain believed to have ice just below the surface. Equipped with a digging tool, Phoenix aims to collect samples from the ice layer and the soil beneath it, which is of significant interest due to its potential exposure to water. Live coverage of the landing will be available on the Discovery Science channel and NASA TV. Initial reports confirm the successful deployment of solar panels, allowing the spacecraft to operate without relying on battery power. The mission's progress is being closely monitored, with updates on the functionality of its arm and other instruments, including a lidar for atmospheric analysis.
  • #31
Perhaps

Either that or they can possibly scoop up less soil next time and then try to break it up using the other mechanical arm. I am assuming the soil has moisture in it which is causing the "clumpiness".

Perhaps drying the sample first would be prudent (unless you want to measure it's actual moisture content w/o any interference.
 
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  • #32
Maybe NASA needs to hire some high school students to oversee their projects and eliminate mistakes that should be obvious. They seem to have brilliant scientists with no common sense. They need to screen the sample to 1mm but no one thought to ask, "what if it doesn't fit through a 1 mm screen"? I would have thought that would be a question that would immediately occur to them when designing the experiment. Maybe a high school student could have suggested, "at the risk of exceeding our 450 million dollar budget, maybe we should include a 20 dollar coffee grinder just in case".

Hopefully this will not go down in history with the Mars Climate Orbiter that failed to make it because it didn't occur to anyone that some of the engineers were working in metric instead of English measurements.
 
  • #33
Haha that was funny Dilletante.
 
  • #34
dilletante said:
Maybe NASA needs to hire some high school students to oversee their projects and eliminate mistakes that should be obvious. They seem to have brilliant scientists with no common sense. They need to screen the sample to 1mm but no one thought to ask, "what if it doesn't fit through a 1 mm screen"? I would have thought that would be a question that would immediately occur to them when designing the experiment. Maybe a high school student could have suggested, "at the risk of exceeding our 450 million dollar budget, maybe we should include a 20 dollar coffee grinder just in case".

Hopefully this will not go down in history with the Mars Climate Orbiter that failed to make it because it didn't occur to anyone that some of the engineers were working in metric instead of English measurements.

Give it a chance. But holy cow. I think you're right. Next time hire some gardeners to design that apparatus.

It is a good point however, keeping the moisture in the "clump" may be a priority.

Were the former inhabitants of Mars Martian Cats... who used clumping kitty litter?
 
  • #35
Surface clumpiness is not, in my mind, a huge surprise. Another scoop in the same place should yield some particulates.
 
  • #36
They are still working on it. I guess they assumed the soil was powdery. Ooops.

The thought is that ice, ostensibly frozen water, is binding the particles.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080609.html

Martian soil continues to cause problems for Phoenix.
AIAA Daily Launch said:
The Los Angeles Times (6/10, Johnson) reports, "In a series of maneuvers that sounds more like cooking class than research...scientists said Monday they would try one more time to shake bits of the clumpy Martian soil into a test oven on NASA's Phoenix lander before switching to a backup strategy that called for dribbling the soil into the oven." So far, two attempts have failed to get soil into the Thermal Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) oven. According to TEGA lead scientist William Boynton, on the last attempt to shake the lander "[a] few tiny particles fell into the oven, but the sample was too small." The "clumpiness" of the soil, which is blamed for its inability to reach the oven, may be from the presence of water. "The problem with the oven is the latest in a series of glitches." According to Boynton, the researchers "deally...would by now have completed the first analysis of the Martian surface and would be well on the way to digging into the ice layer."

The San Francisco Chronicle (6/10, A2, Perlman) adds, that "Boynton tried commanding the scoop to sprinkle just a little bit of the shaken soil at a time into another of the ovens," but "may not know whether they were successful for another day or two after messages are relayed from Mars via the Mars Odyssey." Boynton said, "We were worried about not having enough soil to work with," but "now we know we have more than enough to dribble just a little bit at a time into the ovens, and we're pretty confident that will work."

The Arizona Republic (6/10, Ryman) notes, "Scientists believe the dirt clods could be caused by moisture created when the lander's powerful thrusters helped the craft land. The clumping also could be from salts in the soil, said Doug Ming, a member of the Phoenix science team" from the Johnson Space Center.
 
  • #37
Astronuc said:
They are still working on it. I guess they assumed the soil was powdery. Ooops.

Assumptions eh? :biggrin:

Just off the top of my head though...Wasn't one of the biggest reasons (if not the reason) for sending the Phoenix in the first place to "confirm" scientists belief that Mars once had open surface water similar to Earth? :confused:

Could this issue with the clumpy soil be because they failed to provide for a scenario where their hypothesis actually tested true?

I mean, unless all the engineers who worked on this project comes from the tropics, couldn't they just have attempted a dig in the garden in winter first, to know that frozen soil very rarely comes in "a couple of millimetres in diameter" packages. :rolleyes:

Or am I completely on the wrong track here?
 
  • #38
baywax said:
Give it a chance. But holy cow. I think you're right. Next time hire some gardeners to design that apparatus.
Phoenix does have a shaker to break up the soil. It didn't work the first time around. They tried additional shaking. That didn't work, either. The tried sprinkling it on rather than dump. That appears to have worked!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080610.html"
NASA said:
On Monday, Phoenix tested delivering Martian soil by sprinkling it rather than dumping it. The positive result prompted researchers not only to proceed with plans for delivery to the microscope, but also to plan on sprinkling a sample in the near future into one of the eight ovens of an instrument that bakes and sniffs samples, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.

The sprinkling method developed a few months ago by members of Phoenix's arm and microscope teams uses vibration of the tilted scoop by a motorized rasp to gently jostle some material out, instead of turning the scoop over to empty it. The rasp is located on the back of the scoop and will be used later in the mission to scrape up samples of subsurface ice.
 
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  • #39
I am very confident the system will work. One more scoop ... give me one more scoop.
 
  • #40
Chronos said:
I am very confident the system will work. One more scoop ... give me one more scoop.

Is there anyway they can order the shovel to break up the soil before scooping some of it up?

Here's a shot of the "clods" in the shovel.

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=3240&cID=49
 
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  • #41
phyzmatix said:
Assumptions eh? :biggrin:

Just off the top of my head though...Wasn't one of the biggest reasons (if not the reason) for sending the Phoenix in the first place to "confirm" scientists belief that Mars once had open surface water similar to Earth? :confused:

Could this issue with the clumpy soil be because they failed to provide for a scenario where their hypothesis actually tested true?

I mean, unless all the engineers who worked on this project comes from the tropics, couldn't they just have attempted a dig in the garden in winter first, to know that frozen soil very rarely comes in "a couple of millimetres in diameter" packages. :rolleyes:

Or am I completely on the wrong track here?
JPL is in Pasadena, CA, and unless they go up into the Sierra Nevada range or up into N. Cal or Oregon/Washington, these guys never see snow or freezing weather. I think they take prototypes into the desert, but I suspect they never took it to a place where the ground was frozen.

They should have put a heat ray on the vehicle, but then that might alarm the locals. :biggrin:
 
  • #42
D H said:
Phoenix does have a shaker to break up the soil. It didn't work the first time around. They tried additional shaking. That didn't work, either. The tried sprinkling it on rather than dump. That appears to have worked!
Ah - the old 'shake and bake' method! :biggrin: It works every time. :smile:
 
  • #43
Astronuc said:
JPL is in Pasadena, CA, and unless they go up into the Sierra Nevada range or up into N. Cal or Oregon/Washington, these guys never see snow or freezing weather.
The robotic arm was built at JPL, but the TEGA (the analyzer) wasn't.

It was built by the University of Arizona and the University of Texas/Dallas.

I think they take prototypes into the desert, but I suspect they never took it to a place where the ground was frozen.
NASA and JPL test a lot of the equipment destined for Mars in the dry valleys in Antarctica.

They must have tested this arm in a suitable environment, no? yes?

Here's a blog by one of the Phoenix qual testers: http://fawkes1.lpl.arizona.edu/blogsPost.php?bID=119"
The [noparse][Engineering Qualification Models][/noparse] come to the Payload Interoperability Testbed (and yes we call it the PIT) at Science Operations Center here in Tucson. We build a complete representative and functional robot here. The "flight" models go to Denver to be added to the avionics which is the part to fly it to and land it on Mars.​

OK, maybe not the qual testing, but they did test some prototype in a suitable environment? Please?
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/science_ra.php"
A similar RA developed for the Mars Polar Lander was tested at Death Valley in 2000 and successfully dug a 10 inch trench in just under 4 hours. The extremely hard soil conditions at Death Valley are similar to those expected at Phoenix's martian arctic landing site.​

Well, at least they tested a similar robotic arm outside ... in Death Valley ... ARGGHHH!
 
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  • #44
D H said:
The robotic arm was built at JPL, but the TEGA (the analyzer) wasn't.

It was built by the University of Arizona and the University of Texas/Dallas.


NASA and JPL test a lot of the equipment destined for Mars in the dry valleys in Antarctica.

They must have tested this arm in a suitable environment, no? yes?

Here's a blog by one of the Phoenix qual testers: http://fawkes1.lpl.arizona.edu/blogsPost.php?bID=119"
The [noparse][Engineering Qualification Models][/noparse] come to the Payload Interoperability Testbed (and yes we call it the PIT) at Science Operations Center here in Tucson. We build a complete representative and functional robot here. The "flight" models go to Denver to be added to the avionics which is the part to fly it to and land it on Mars.​

OK, maybe not the qual testing, but they did test some prototype in a suitable environment? Please?
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/science_ra.php"
A similar RA developed for the Mars Polar Lander was tested at Death Valley in 2000 and successfully dug a 10 inch trench in just under 4 hours. The extremely hard soil conditions at Death Valley are similar to those expected at Phoenix's martian arctic landing site.​

Well, at least they tested a similar robotic arm outside ... in Death Valley ... ARGGHHH!

Death Valley rocks!
 
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  • #45
Astronuc said:
JPL is in Pasadena, CA, and unless they go up into the Sierra Nevada range or up into N. Cal or Oregon/Washington, these guys never see snow or freezing weather. I think they take prototypes into the desert, but I suspect they never took it to a place where the ground was frozen.

Deserts do funny things to people, perhaps they saw their unchallenged success in a mirage? :biggrin:

Astronuc said:
They should have put a heat ray on the vehicle, but then that might alarm the locals. :biggrin:

:smile:
 
  • #49
phyzmatix said:
Phoenix finds ice

Close up of disappearing matter.

http://fawkes1.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=6936&cID=89
 
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  • #50
I saw it on a YAHOO! link recently. They are talking about the Mars lander finding ice and a guy clumsily is explaining how the robotic arm plans to "shake" the dirt and ice in its bin to make the grains smaller to fit into that "oven" contraption.

Go to www.yahoo.com right now and check out the video link.
 
  • #51
"It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and not some other substance," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, during a Friday news briefing to announce the confirmation of water ice."
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/06_20_pr.php

Unfortunately though it looks like it evaporates pretty readily when exposed.

I see with the soil clumping, the analysis ovens need to be shaken and not stirred. If only they had thought to carry a sweep attachment for the arm along. Oh well ... maybe next trip?
 
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  • #52
Phoenix Mars Lander Finds Ice on Surface of Mars

Link:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/techdigest/20080623/ttc-phoenix-lander-finds-ice-beneath-mar-e870a33.html
 
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  • #53
another article

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080620.wmars0620/BNStory/Front/home
 
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  • #54
From the Yahoo piece:

"Also impurities within the ice has the potential to tell us a great deal about the planet's climate history."

Now I understand how examining ice core samples here can yield useful seasonal climatological data about Earth because of the layering of the seasons and the various iridium layers and such that can be correlated with events that can otherwise offer correlation. This statement by the Yahoo article however looks a trifle misleading since Earth data comes from km deep core samples - not exactly within the means of the 10' arm and scoop - but more to the point absent any historical context to what may be discovered trapped - if indeed a 1% atmospheric pressure environment would trap much of anything useful besides dust.

Certainly it is an exciting start to scratch the surface and turn up water apparently, but I do worry about pumping expectations to discover anything at all like what has been surmised from Earth's polar ice.
 

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