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Guy Webster 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond@lpl.arizona.edu
NEWS RELEASE: 2008-084 May 27, 2008
NASA Mars Lander Prepares to Move Arm
NASA's Phoenix Lander is ready to begin moving its robotic arm, first unlatching its
wrist and then flexing its elbow.
Mission scientists are eager to move Phoenix's robotic arm, for that arm will deliver
samples of icy terrain to their instruments made to study this unexplored Martian
environment.
The team sent commands for moving the arm on Tuesday morning, May 27, to NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for relay to Phoenix. However, the orbiter did not relay
those commands to the lander, so arm movement and other activities are now
planned for Wednesday. The orbiter's communication-relay system is in a standby mode.
NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter is available for relaying communications between Earth and
Phoenix.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter did send back spectacular first images of the landed
Phoenix from orbit, views from the Phoenix lander of where it will work for the next three
months, and a preliminary weather report.
A newly processed image from the high-resolution camera known as HiRISE on NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a full-resolution view of the Phoenix parachute and
lander during its May 25 descent, with Heimdall crater in the background.
"Phoenix appears to be descending into the 10 kilometer, or 6-mile, crater, but is actually
20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, in front of the crater," said HiRISE principal investigator
Alfred S. McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
HiRISE has taken a new color image of Phoenix on the ground about 22 hours after
it landed. It shows the parachute attached to the back shell, the heat shield and the lander
itself against red Mars. The parachute and lander are about 300 meters, roughly 1,000 feet,
apart.
Commands to be sent to the lander Wednesday morning include taking more pictures of
the surroundings and making the first movements of the mission's crucial robotic arm.
A covering that had shielded the arm from microbes during its last few months before
launch had not fully retracted on landing day, May 25, but it moved farther from the arm
during the following day.
"The biobarrier had relaxed more and allows more clearance, but it was not a major
concern either way," said Fuk Li, manager of the Mars Exploration Program
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
During the next three months, the arm will dig into soil near the lander and deliver samples
of soil and ice to laboratory instruments on the lander deck. Following today's commands,
its movements will begin with unlatching the wrist, then moving the arm upwards in a
stair-step manner.
Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona was delighted with
new images of the workspace. "The workspace is ideal for us because it looks very
diggable. We're very happy to see just a few rocks scattered in the digging area."
The Phoenix weather station, provided by the Canadian Space Agency, was activated
within the first hour after landing on Mars, and measurements are now being recorded
continuously. The data from the first 18 hours after landing have been transmitted back to
the science team, and they have provided a weather report. The temperature ranged
between a minimum of minus 80 degrees Celsius (minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit) in the
early morning and a maximum of minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit)
in the afternoon. The average pressure was 8.55 millibars, which is less than a hundredth
of the sea level pressure on Earth. The wind speed was 20 kilometers per hour (13 miles
per hour), out of the northeast. The skies were clear. More instruments will be activated
over the coming days, and the weather report will expand to include measurements of
humidity and visibility.
Smith presented a new Surface Stereo Imager view of the American flag and a mini-DVD
on the Phoenix's deck, about three feet above the Martian surface. The mini-DVD from the
Planetary Society contains a message to future Martian explorers, science fiction stories
and art inspired by the Red Planet, and the names of more than a quarter million
Earthlings.
The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project
management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin. International
contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel,
Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute,
Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. More Phoenix information is at
-end-
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