Phoenix Mars Mission Blogs Feed

FREE! A Philosophy of time and space

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Suzanne M. M. Young
Greetings one and all.
I know it has been a very long time, but I have been too busy to write. Sorry about that! Being the Tactical Science Plan Integrator and squeezing in time to start thinking about our amazing WCL data and what it means towards biohabitability on polar Mars kept me more than busy for many months.

The mission was quite a time �" I mean that both figuratively and very literally - as we worked on Mars time for months. I was entirely immersed in Mars operations ...

Interstellar Storyteller

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Carla Bitter
“I’m going to tell you a story.” If, like me, that line never fails to excite you, you may think a lot about the nature of how we humans communicate. I have been thinking about this more than usual lately, as the best story I am ever going to tell enters its dénouement, and the last chapter of our Martian fairytale unfolds in icy drama.

I realize that Martian storytelling is an ancient practice and I am in excellent company with Greek and Roman philosophers, prehistoric astronomers, ...

Phoenix Weathers Storm

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Patrick Woida
Phoenix has endured her first major storm. Much as the National Hurricane Center, our orbiters saw the first great dust clouds peel out off the north polar cap and heading for the Phoenix site. Since storms like this block out a considerable amount of our precious sunlight that powers our solar panels, we've hunkered down for the weekend until the storm clears taking minimal observations to conserve power. Now that the fair, mild days of summer are over, Phoenix will need battle the growing harsh ...

Martian Dance

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Patrick Woida

After giving us some 23,000 images, we finally have a picture of the Stereo Surface Imager (SSI) on Mars. Two cameras, the SSI and Robotic Arm Camera (RAC) twisted around in a coordinated dance to take images of each other. The RAC checked the SSI windows and SSI confirmed the RAC for LED function and cover operation. The only thing missing from the images of all the wonderful landscapes, trenches, and instrument checkouts during the last 116 sols was a picture of the SSI itself in the Mars ...

Final Blog: Sept 30th Farewell

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Patrick Woida
Well the best years of my professional life come to a close. Aside from the Phoenix pushing on with her work on Mars, the last week has been filled with some wonderful events. The University hosted a team-wide celebration for those from UA/LPL, JPL, Lockheed/Martin and other individuals from many institutions who made the mission a success. Also on the weekend Peter Smith, Mike Drake, Alfred McEwen, Rigel & myself were recognized with a civic award called the Dynamic Duo. We wrapped up ...

Procrastination Leads to Reflection

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Keri Bean
So the semester’s in full swing and in an effort to avoid studying for the 4 upcoming exams, I figured I’d let ya’ll know what’s been going on.

I went to the SOC again for the first two weeks of August, in between the end of the summer semester and the beginning of the fall semester. I’ll echo Pat on how sad and eerie it is to see the SOC so… empty. Working on Earth time is not as fun as Mars time was. On Earth time, we can do most of our work within a span of 30 minutes at ...

Frosty Devils

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Patrick Woida
The Winds of Change continue to sweep across the landscape. Today we found dust devils (small cyclones) in our Sol 104 images. This is part of the "Happy Ever After" high resolution pan. We already have our regular complete 3-color "Mission Success" Peter Pan done. While we are still in operations, we are making a new high-resolution 15 filter pan. Today she yielded an unexpected bonus.
We are taking advantage the extra opportunities the extended mission provides. After all, we spent $400 ...

Spooky Sols

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Patrick Woida

I'm almost getting used to the kind of spooky environment here at the Science Operations Center in Tucson. So VERY different than the primary mission. We've got extended mission, Earth time, and distributed operations. Nearly all the people who joined us in Tucson from around the world have now headed back home to sleep in their own beds after 3+ months here.

So, when meetings start, in a room that seldom held fewer than 80 people, now has maybe a dozen gathered around the table. ...

Martian Dream Prompt

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Carla Bitter

My little girl is suddenly not so little any more. I gazed at her one August afternoon from my "Mom’s on Mars" stupor that has become my way of life during the Mission’s Surface Operations phase and I noticed things that were new. Blooming in my absence, here has emerged a robust little flower, a ripe and juicy peach of kid who let the Red Planet claim her mommy, and who in turn, has developed an undeniable identity and voice all her own. This is not to say that mother and child went down ...

Amazing

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Patrick Woida

It simply amazes me how the team keeps charging on. We are currently transitioning to "Earth Time" operations. As it sounds, we're back to a sun-synched existence on Earth. As a consequence, we are taking the downlink (getting data from Mars) and working uplink (sending commands) from being serial to parallel. Up to now, we would downlink the Sol's data, review it, discuss it, come up with a plan for the next day, then build and uplink new sequences. A process often going 14 or more hours ...

PSIP has left the building...

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 MST

by PSIP

Today was our last day in the Science Operation Center--and also the last day of Phoenix Student Interns at the SOC! We started our day with a group breakfast, then headed off to the Tucson Art Gallery, which we loved! The photography was amazing.

We came in to the SOC around 4:00 pm, in time for kickoff. We spent the majority of our day working on our end presentation, an ordeal that began yesterday. After many hours of debating which pictures should be included, what info ...

The Talk of the SOC

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 MST

by PSIP

Today's adventure found us at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) headquarters. Graduate students working in Tucson presented their summer's work, which was followed by a tour of the facility where we met more astronomers and graduate students, as well as seeing the incredible machines involved with astronomy. It's amazing how many connections you can make by being part of program such as PSIP! At NOAO, we met people who were very helpful informing us of all the opportunities ...

Field work

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:00:00 MST

by PSIP

Today was an exciting day for research and NASA activities--with an early start! At 8:00 a.m., we met up with Professor Kounaves, Trish, Rachel, and Shannon to head up to Sabino Canyon. Our mission was to collect soil samples at different elevations. A trolley took us up pretty high and we got off to go on our own hike. The trolley ride was incredible, filled with many photo-ops and breathtaking scenery, but our trip got even better when we got to hike up some of the canyon. After a hot hike ...

What a ride! A year since launch

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 MST

by Patrick Woida
Well it's been a year since launch and here we are running full speed on Mars a year later. What a ride it's been. The thrill of launch, the training and readiness tests, a true operations for months on the Martian surface. Some days it feels like that last year has been longer than the previous 3! It feels good to be able to have kept the promises of the last year to you all. If there's one word to describe this mission, it would be "SUCCESS "

So to wrap up ...

Lab Time

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 MST

by PSIP

Today we started at the SOC on a later schedule, but that didn't stop us from working! We got to work in the MECA labs, figuring out the pH of different concentrations of NaCO3 (Sodium Bicarbonate). We found that the measured pHs of different molarities of NaCO3 were between 11.0 to 12.0, which is what we predicted. We worked with our scientist mentors' graduate and undergraduate students from Tufts University and also watched the NOVA special about the Phoenix lander, which featured the ...