Phoenix Lander shakes to loosen clumpy soil

William Atkins
Monday, 09 June 2008 23:46

Science - Space

The robotic arm on the Phoenix Mars Lander dropped some Martian soil into an analyzer on Friday, June 6, 2008. The soil was too clumpy, causing it not to fall into the oven. So, mission managers have sent a “shaking” command to the Lander to see if the motion will loosen up the clumpy soil.

The commands to commence shaking were sent late on Sunday morning (June 8th—mission day Sol 14) and the results will be reported by NASA later on Monday, June 9th.

The shaking was performed inside the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, which is a part of the oven where the soil is positioned just outside.

Mission managers hope that the mechanical shaking will allow the soil to fall into the oven so the TEGA can analyze it with respect to its chemical composition.

The TEGA can measure any organic volatile compounds (VOCs)—which are carbon-based molecules such as hydrocarbons—down to ten parts per billion.

Also on Sunday, the robotic arm of the Lander scooped up a soil sample from the “Baby Bear” site. The sample will be placed onto the MECA microscopy station on mission day Sol 16 or later.

Soil particles as small as one micrometer in width (one millionth of a meter) can be analyzed by the MECA station. The robotic arm will scoop up some soil and place it into one of four laboratory cells.

Then, water will be added so a probing device on the robotic arm scoop can measure various characteristics of the soil particles. It will be able to identify ions of calcium, magnesium, sodium, and sulfate.

The probe, called the Thermal and Electrical Conductivity Probe (TECP), consists of four short probes that can make measurements of soil temperature, humidity, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, dielectric permittivity, wind speed, and atmospheric temperature.

The Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) was formerly named the Mars Environmental Compatibility Assessment instrument.

The MECA consists of three instruments: the West Chemistry Laboratory (WCL), the Optical (OM) and Atomic Force (AFM) Microscopes, and a Thermal and Electrical Conductivity Probe (TECP).

Check out the latest images taken on Mars on mission day Sol 14. Please turn to the next page.