Phoenix on Mars - Page 3

slang · #61 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 06:22 PM

(i'll try my hand at some q's)

Q: why wait to close the oven? (apparently was mentioned it could take a day)
A: we could do it in 15 minutes, but since today was planned to sprinkle on microscope, we unexpectedly received the "oven full" signal, by then it was too late to reschedule todays activities. (Shaker operated for about 5 seconds when suddenly flow started happening into oven, shaker automatically turned off at "oven full" signal)

Q oven full when?
A this morning we found out that oven full happened overnight

Q problems why?
A clumpy, can't go through screen, don't know why, seems too cohesive

Q just crunchy part is clumpy?
A no, seems like all the way through, clumpy all over

slang · #62 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 06:38 PM

Q will future samples put next soil in scoop?
A no, next times we will probably try to vibrate sample out slower, both using scoop and oven as vibrator. its like flour, you put it in a seeve, it won't go through, have to bang the seeve

Q are other teams making progress in the mission
A microscope is helping determine type of samples. trying to emulate clumps on earth but not succeeding yet

Q data uplink when?
A microscope commands uploaded now(?) TEGA will be commanded tomorrow, will start analysis 2 days from now.

Q about ice?
A seeing what happened, there MAY have been ice in TEGA oven, which may have changed the soil over the last couple of days so its flowing in now

Q next priorities?
A want to dig in 'wonderland', which is in polygon area. have only 4(?) wet cells for chemistry, so changing planned digs for it

Q any soils on earth similar to soil on mars? will TEGA/micr. tell what caused the problems?
A many types of soils on earth.. just haven't found anything similar yet

Q vibrator causing problems for micr?
A not using vibrator when using microscope, using vibrator is not power issue problem for micr.

Q what does microscope tell us about soil, how big is it?
A 6" long, sample holder 4", round, rotates, total 10" long 5" diameter. have diff types surfaces to determine particle properties like magnetic, color, size, etc. we're only looking at very small particles

Q what was reaction when oven full in team?
A found out hour before midpoint(?) meeting. kept quiet, during meeting he said suddenly "we got terminated early signal..... " ... ".. because of oven full signal" and everybody cheered

Q is debate heating up now about ice/salt/martian stuff
A we really except ice under soil, maybe there's some in soil, maybe some salt crust on top, we will find out. speculating now, maybe in week or two we will know. still much debate on it

Manchurian Taikonaut · #63 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 06:42 PM

I was wondering how Phoenix took those colorized photos mars, are they using different filters?

01101001 · #64 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 06:53 PM

Rinky-dink links:
NASA Phoenix Mission
University of Arizona Phoenix Mars Mission
JPL Phoenix Mission News
NASA Phoenix Twitter Feed
CSA Phoenix Mars Mission
Planetary Society: Phoenix Mission
Planetary Society: Phoenix Raw Images
Planetary Society: Weblog
Emily Lakdawalla Ustream video chat (sporadic)
Texas A&M University Phoenix SSI Raw Images Directory
Google Mars landing site
NASA TV (or NASA TV, Yahoo! source)
NASA TV Media Channel

slang · #65 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 06:54 PM

Q is shaking like a salt shaker over microscope?
A at end of scoop there's sort of a 'bumper' to vibrate scoop, to make tiny particles fall off. we take images to check if works as planned

Q question about lag between commanding and getting data back
A takes a while, first need to validate commands so they won't hurt lander, long checking process for that indepth and detailed, sometimes there are problems. then, when ready, sent via deep space network antenna via X-band to orbiter. orbiter waits until over lander to send over UHF. 15 minute time delay, but much more delays involved due to system. send data up in early passes, sometimes get something back, usually get data back in later passes

Q how do you empty the ovens after you analysed soil?
A we don't. use only once. that's why 8 ovens

Q (why land there?) yawn
A very patient answer

Q was there really music played when you announced oven full in meeting?
A I just played music from laptop and kept it close to microphone. song was "shake shake shake"

Q will TEGA be able to see what caused clumping?
A if moisture or ice involved we will see it on heating. wet chem lab will tell about salts maybe

Q sticky soil? like mississippi mud sticky? any earth description?
A not known yet, not enough info

Q sprinkling on sol 15 on lander deck, how long did image series take? how much material?
A maybe 4, 5 tablespoons, didn't take long, maybe 15 minutes to do all of that. learning to deliver samples better every day now. really could not know 100% beforehand, learning now, took a few days, ready now to start all science

Q clumpy nature of soil, still looking at hydrazine
A our feeling is hydrazine would be combusted on way in, nitrogen/ammonia result from burn process, but should be find later if so, but probably not

Q could drying of sample have enabled flow into oven? will all samples have to be dried now?
A we don't think that's going to be the case, maybe if we did it again in a large dump, but expect when sprinkling that it will fall in immediately through screen, hopefully can investigate possible ice in it quicker by starting process sooner

end of q/a

01101001 · #66 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manchurian Taikonaut

I was wondering how Phoenix took those colorized photos mars, are they using different filters?

Depends on the camera. RAC on the robot arms uses different colored LEDs to illuminate its subjects (usually out of the light down in a trench). They couldn't color-image Holy Cow possible-ice under lander well with it. The SSI (stereo surface imager) uses filters.

The MECA optical microscope probably uses LED lighting.

slang · #67 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slang

end of q/a

That was the best part to type

DOUBLE respect for BinaryDude for doing this all the time!

01101001 · #68 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 07:07 PM

Thanks, slang. I was swamped. I couldn't even half-listen and typing was right out. I will read your effort later.

Argos · #69 (**permalink**) 11-June-2008, 09:04 PM

Good news

RGClark · #70 (**permalink**) 12-June-2008, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slang

...

Q sticky soil? like mississippi mud sticky? any earth description?
A not known yet, not enough info
...

end of q/a

The temperature and pressure conditions there are within the range of liquid water brines at least temporarily. Maybe the difficulty in modeling this problem is the resistance to seeing this as a legitimate possibility.

If it were small amounts of liquid water even in the form of brines then that would fit perfectly since the small clumpy particles would be small amounts of mud.

Bob Clark

01101001 · #71 (**permalink**) 12-June-2008, 03:59 AM

Planetary Society Weblog: Phoenix sol 15 update

Has information about combining Phoenix images, a good sprinkle test animation, and also a humorous artist's depiction of what Phoenix might look like after a protracted sample-delivery-technique campaign.

01101001 · #72 (**permalink**) 12-June-2008, 12:41 PM

University of Arizona Sol 17 Raw Images

Texas A&M Sol 17 Raw Images (if not now, soon)

This looks like a delivery to the MECA optical.

Casper the Friendly Ghost haunts the Phoenix deck. (See it before it's an episode of Coast to Coast AM.) Actually, this looks like one of many oblique shots of the mouth of MECA to see where the delivery landed. Or, is it a detail of the middle of the scoop? Can the robot arm camera zoom? Edit: Yes it can, some.)

NASA Phoenix Mission News

Quote:

Next televised media briefing: Friday, June 13, 2 p.m. Eastern [1100 PDT, 1400 EDT, 1800 UTC]

But the NASA TV schedule has it an hour later:

Quote:

June 13, Friday 3 p.m. - Mars Phoenix Lander Mission Update - JPL/Tucson (Public and Media Channels)

NASA TV (or NASA TV, Yahoo! source)

Swift · #73 (**permalink**) 12-June-2008, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Has information about combining Phoenix images, a good sprinkle test animation, and also a humorous artist's depiction of what Phoenix might look like after a protracted sample-delivery-technique campaign.

...what Phoenix might look like after protracted sample-delivery campaign

01101001 · #74 (**permalink**) 12-June-2008, 03:33 PM

Planetary Society Weblog: Sol 16 Update: The TEGA oven is full!

The news is getting old, but it's such good news that a revisit doesn't hurt.

Quote:

On the seventh and final attempt to try and shake some of the material dumped on the TEGA instrument on sol 12 down into one of the tiny ovens it worked! The team had all but given up hope that this method would be successful and were surprised when the shaking sequence ended early. Worry that something could be wrong quickly evaporated as they realized that Phoenix had terminated the shaking correctly after sensing that the oven was full. The news brought cheers and a standing ovation for Dr. Bill Boynton the TEGA lead scientist when he gave a surprise announcement at a team meeting this morning.

And there's a nicely composed image of the arm at Mars, with solar array, put together by guest blogger James Canvin.

nutant gene 71 · #75 (**permalink**) 12-June-2008, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RGClark

The temperature and pressure conditions there are within the range of liquid water brines at least temporarily. Maybe the difficulty in modeling this problem is the resistance to seeing this as a legitimate possibility.

If it were small amounts of liquid water even in the form of brines then that would fit perfectly since the small clumpy particles would be small amounts of mud.

Bob Clark

Let's see... There is a briny liquid substance suspected at icy temperatures just beneath the surface soil on Mars polar region, or ice and soil mix... A scoop of this stuff gets dumped on TEGA filtering screen... But it fails to fall through mesh... So it seems the binding properties of this icy slush holds the dump soil together into a kind of icy mud... But it is now no longer sitting on planet's icy surface but suspended in Mars' very dry atmosphere, so some of the icy brine's liquid sublimates.... Now a day or two later it is drier and suddenly falls through the mesh... Very puzzling this was not modelled in originally!...

Oh the suspense, but it was fun just the same.

01101001 · #76 (**permalink**) 12-June-2008, 06:20 PM

In an earlier Phoenix topic:

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Is this like a melted flat smooth rock under Phoenix (under a thruster)?

The June 12 APOD is a nice mosaic of the Ice Queen tableau rock and a lander leg.

Quote:

In fact, the apparent holes or depressions in the Snow Queen's otherwise flat surface are located just under the thrusters.

(But still, I've heard speculated that maybe the thrusters didn't sculpt Snow Queen's dimples with heat, but maybe the blast just revealed their long existence, or dislodged rocks formerly occupying the spaces.)

schlaugh · #77 (**permalink**) 13-June-2008, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nutant gene 71

... But it is now no longer sitting on planet's icy surface but suspended in Mars' very dry atmosphere, so some of the icy brine's liquid sublimates.... Now a day or two later [the soil] is drier and suddenly falls through the mesh...

Interesting point. If the soil stopped clumping because moisture had sublimated into the atmosphere, will there be enough moisture or ice in the sample(s) to be detected by TEGA?

01101001 · #78 (**permalink**) 13-June-2008, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schlaugh

Interesting point. If the soil stopped clumping because moisture had sublimated into the atmosphere, will there be enough moisture or ice in the sample(s) to be detected by TEGA?

Some briefing, some one expressed concern that that huge-dump sample sat too long probably to see the water that might have been there. They intend not to dawdle on the next TEGA sample.