NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has
successfully dumped another sample of surface dirt into its ovens for analysis,
mission scientists reported this weekend.
Phoenix's robotic arm delivered
dirt Thursday from a trench informally named "Rosy Red" through a
narrow opening to a screen above the No. 5 oven on the lander's
Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA). TEGA heats up the samples in its oven
and then analyzes the vapors given off to help determine the composition of the
Martian dirt.
The $420 million Phoenix
mission is designed to analyze the surface dirt and underlying ice in the
arctic regions of Mars to assess whether or not the area might have been
habitable at some point in the past.
A few particles of the sample passed
through the screen on Thursday, but not enough to fill the oven and allow
analysis of the sample to begin. The Phoenix
team sent commands for TEGA to vibrate the screen again on Friday, and more
material reached the oven, though still not enough to proceed with analysis.
"There appear to be clumps
blocking the opening," said Phoenix science
lead Doug Ming of NASA Johnson Space
Center, in Houston, on Friday.
Vibration of the screen on Saturday
finally succeeded in getting enough dirt into the oven to begin analysis. The
team sent instructions to begin analysis of the sample on Sunday.
Phoenix scientists will be looking for signs
of perchlorate, a highly oxidizing substance that
was detected in dirt samples by the lander's wet
chemistry laboratory. The last sample analyzed by TEGA found no indications of
any chlorine present
On Friday, the spacecraft also
extended the width of an exploratory trench informally named "Neverland," which runs between two rocks on the
surface of the ground.
Phoenix also took overnight measurements of
the conductivity of the Martian regolith that were
completed on Wednesday. A fork-like probe
inserted into the dirt checks how well heat and electricity move through
the dirt from one prong to another.
Phoenix's mission, originally slated to end
at the end of August, has been extended to Sept. 30.
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