Zombie Phoenix

From Gizmodo:

NASA scientists have been trying to resurrect the Phoenix Mars Lander. Sadly, they gave up last week. Happily, there's still hope. If the Phoenix's hardware survives the extreme—150º F of the Marian winter—NASA controllers will begin trying to revive it again in Spring. They will do so by issuing commands from the two Mars orbiters, and wishing that the probe would have enough strength to restart. Hopefully it will be successful.

<- aviation week ->

Phoenix's final days to be spent as a blogger

The guys over at Dvice have posted an article from Gizmodo on how the dying Martian lander will be using its last remaining functional days. Now that its batteries have run out and it'll soon stop operating all together. It's still got some time left, though, and before it goes for good, the Lander will be working a new job as a blogger.

Of course some of the material is written by humans, but iner-mixed will be data from instruments that require no heating and less power. However Phoenix's life is now measured in days. It won't be long before its final days when the cold darkness of the Martian winter destroys its circuit boards and solar arrays.

<- Phoenix blog ->

Mars Phoenix Lander nears end of mission

Nasa's Mars Phoenix lander has been sending back data for five months – far longer than the original three months it was supposed to last. However as the Martian fall begins the lander is slowly loosing power due to shorter days and fewer hours of sunlight reaching its solar panels.

Phoenix has run up an impressive list of discoveries. The lander has recorded snowfall, scraped up ice and found that the dust on the surface of Mars chemically resembles seawater, adding to evidence that liquid water – that may have supported life – once flowed on the planet's surface.

But now to conserve the remaining power, engineers will begin turning off Phoenix's internal heaters, one at a time. If this step is not taken, the electrical needs of the craft would soon surpass the minuscule amount that the solar cells now are generating. By turning off the heaters in a controlled fashion, Phoenix can continue doing science for several more weeks. The remaining experiments that do not require heating can operate for several weeks, but ultimately the cold will shut the lander down, ending the mission.

<- NewScientist via Dvice ->

Water Ice on Mars Confirmed

Well, we sort of suspected this was about to happen when the Phoenix first noticed sublimation happening in the first trench that it dug. Well NASA is confirming now that Phoenix has indeed confirmed that water vapor was detected when the latest samples were warmed in one of the ovens used for testing samples.

NASA also noted that the Phoenix's mission has been officially extended for one month beyond its original mission.

Phoenix has also completed its color panorama view of its landing site which was one of the criteria for completion of its primary mission.

color panorama view

<- more ->

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the heads up

Phoenix Lander may have found ice

In an article from New Scientist that Shaun sent in The Mars polar lander Phoenix, while extending a trench, uncovered a bright white substance that could very well be ice. The other possibility is a form of salt, which in either case supports the theory that water was once very abundant on Mars. The lander's robotic arm uncovered the white substance after further excavating sites called Dodo and Baby Bear to create one large trench. Periodic photos will be taken of the area to document if the exposed layer changes. Evaporation or frost, of the white area, will be a strong indicator that liquid water once pooled in the trough between polygons and then froze.

****Update as of 6/20/08*****
I have been hearing a lot of conflicting data, but Shaun Saunders sends me an article from MSNBC. It seems that the white substance that was the center of some confusion is indeed some form of ice. That conclusion was reached when scientists viewed updates of the trench cut by the Phoenix's scoop. New pictures from the site show a marked decrease in the amount of whitish material that can be viewed in the frame. According to the new article: Initial chemical analysis was inconclusive, but scientists said they could tell by seeing if the material disappeared after exposure to the thin Martian atmosphere. When scientists compared Sunday's pictures with imagery captured early Thursday, dice-sized crumbs of the white material were clearly missing.

<View the before and after shots to see the difference>

Phoenix Lander may have to sprinkle

As has been reported, Phoenix's earlier soil samples would not pass through the screens, above the small testing ovens, because the soil was much more "clumpy" than researchers had anticipated.

The analyzer vibrated the screen for 20 minutes on Sunday but detected only a few particles getting through the screen, not enough to fill the tiny oven below. William Boynton of the University of Arizona, who is the lead scientist on the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Anaylzer, or TEGA, designed to bake and sniff samples to identify some key ingredients, said that they would shake the screen one more time, "and if that doesn't work, it is likely we will use our new, revised delivery method on another thermal analyzer cell,". The revised delivery method will hold the scoop at an angle above the delivery target and sprinkle out a small amount of the sample by vibrating the scoop. The vibration comes from running a motorized rasp on the bottom of the scoop.

click article title for complete story in Science Daily

Phoenix Lander digs in....

From msnbc online I read that Phoenix did a few test digs this past weekend. Here is a real interesting photo taken of soil inside the scoop. Initial tests will ascertain whether or not the white patches in the upper right are water, CO2 or some form of salt. The actual digs are expected to start later this week, where the 8 foot arm will make a series of trenches looking for water and organic compounds that could be the building blocks of life.

The Mars Phoenix lander brought Science Fiction audio to Mars

Sometimes I am bit slow to the mark. Here is an example. I was looking at pics from the Phoenix lander and saw what appeared to be a CD on the deck of the robot. Never gave it much thought until I was reading Jesse's SFFAudio blog and found that the disk is full of audio from Earth. Here is a partial listing:

Carl Sagan audio

Arthur C. Clarke audio

War of the Worlds The 1938 radio drama.

Wells and Welles - A 1940 non-fiction radio piece in which H.G. Wells and Orson Welles met to discuss War of the Worlds.

The Viking Landings : Jon Lomberg’s report on the Viking landing on Mars, July 20, 1976. Includes live recordings from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and interviews with science fiction writers and actors.

By the way, the DVD is made of a silica glass (instead of regular plastic) so as to withstand long-term exposure on the Martian surface. Now all those Martians will need is a DVD player.

Thanks Jesse!

Phoenix Lander arrives and is healthy!

The Mars Phoenix Lander parachutes down to Mars on Sunday, in this image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. As you can see in the B&W image from the MRO the lander is clearly visible below the parachute as it nears the surface. The next photo This is one of the first images captured by the Phoenix lander, showing the vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars. Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona at Tucson and principal investigator for the Phoenix mission noted that the ground looks like the "active surface of the Arctic regions of Earth." Cracks in the soil show that surface is "active" because no dust or sand has filled in the cracks. over the next few days, the lander's 7.7-foot robotic arm is scheduled to begin functioning. The robotic arm is set to collect the first soil samples in about a week. The lander is expected to function for about 90 days with energy generated by the solar panels.