Phoenix Prepares to Move Arm

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-084

NASA Mars Lander Prepares to Move Arm
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 27, 2008

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 *** 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
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix .

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@xxxxxxxx

Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
2008-084

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