NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Delivers Soil Sample To MicroscopeJune 21, 2008 -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Saturday beamed back images showing that Phoenix's Robotic Arm successfully sprinkled soil onto the delivery port of the lander's Optical Microscope. Mission scientists said enough of the fine-grained soil sample remains in the scoop of the lander's Robotic Arm for delivery to either the Wet Chemistry Lab or Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer. Both the Wet Chemistry Lab and the Optical Microscope are part of the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA, instrument. "We want to deliver similar soil samples to all three instruments," said Ray Arvidson, the mission's lead scientist for digging activities, from Washington University in St. Louis. The lander's Robotic Arm has been commanded to remain in an "up" position to hold the collected soil in the scoop until it can be delivered to the other instruments.  |
THE MISSIONThe University of Arizona is honored to be the first public university to lead a mission to Mars. The Phoenix Mars Mission, scheduled to land May 25, 2008, is the first in NASA's "Scout Program." Scouts are designed to be highly innovative and relatively low-cost complements to major missions being planned as part of the agency's Mars Exploration Program. Learn More |
The Phoenix Mission is led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of The University of Arizona, supported by a science team of CO-Is, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership with Lockheed Martin Space Systems. International contributions are provided by the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Additional information on Phoenix is online at here and here. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Additional information on NASA's Mars program is online at here.
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