Quote:
Originally Posted by RGClark
Any chance on one of the remaining TEGA ovens only the mode general search mode is used?
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By choice, yes. From what I've read, it's a configurable choice, but during certain phases general searching is not a wise choice; maybe it's not even possible during those phases because it's unwise. A description is in the
Planetary Society Weblog: Phoenix perchlorate kerfuffle.
Quote:
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As different gases can evolve rather quickly during these early, low heating cycles, the TEGA team can't afford to do the full five-minute mass spectrometer scan during this calorimetry phase -- instead, they focus on a few masses of molecules that they predict will come off during the heating cycle, such as water and its cracking products, hydrogen and oxygen.
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After they got perchlorate readings on MECA, they chose to look for chlorine with TEGA (and didn't detect it -- but that can still be consistent with perchlorate).