NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Rasps Frozen Layer, Collects Sample

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Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
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Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond@lpl.arizona.edu

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-134 July 16, 2008

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Rasps Frozen Layer, Collects Sample

TUCSON, Ariz. -- A powered rasp on the back of the robotic arm scoop of NASA's Phoenix Mars
Lander successfully drilled into the frozen soil and loosened material that was collected in the
lander's scoop.

Images and data sent from Phoenix early Wednesday indicated the shaved material in the scoop had
changed slightly over time during the hours after it was collected.

The motorized rasp -- located on the back of the lander's robotic arm scoop -- made two distinct
holes in a trench informally named "Snow White." The material loosened by the rasp was collected
in the scoop and documented by the Robotic Arm Camera. The activity was a test of the rasping
method of gathering an icy sample, in preparation for using that method in coming days to collect a
sample for analysis in an oven of Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer.

"This was a trial that went really well," said Richard Morris, a Phoenix science team member from
NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. "While the putative ice sublimed out of the shavings over
several hours, this shows us there will be a good chance ice will remain in a sample for delivery" to
Phoenix's laboratory ovens.

Phoenix on Wednesday will be commanded to continue scraping and enlarging the "Snow White"
trench and to conduct another series of rasp tests. The lander's cameras will again be used to
monitor the sample in the scoop after its collection.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona with project management at
JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come
from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel; the universities of Copenhagen and
Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For
more about Phoenix, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix and http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

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