[meteorite-list] Mars Phoenix Lander Finishes Successful Work on Red Planet

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:40:21 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200811102340.PAA23350_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

Nov. 10, 2008

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Guy Webster/Rhea Borja
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278/0850
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov, rhea.r.borja at jpl.nasa.gov

Lori Stiles
University of Arizona, Tucson
520-626-4402
lstiles at email.arizona.edu

RELEASE: 08-284

MARS PHOENIX LANDER FINISHES SUCCESSFUL WORK ON RED PLANET

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications
after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal
decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not
providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power
necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments.

Mission engineers last received a signal from the lander on Nov. 2.
Phoenix, in addition to shorter daylight, has encountered a dustier
sky, more clouds and colder temperatures as the northern Mars summer
approaches autumn. The mission exceeded its planned operational life
of three months to conduct and return science data.

The project team will be listening carefully during the next few weeks
to hear if Phoenix revives and phones home. However, engineers now
believe that is unlikely because of the worsening weather conditions
on Mars. While the spacecraft's work has ended, the analysis of data
from the instruments is in its earliest stages.

"Phoenix has given us some surprises, and I'm confident we will be
pulling more gems from this trove of data for years to come," said
Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of
Arizona in Tucson.

Launched Aug. 4, 2007, Phoenix landed May 25, 2008, farther north than
any previous spacecraft to land on the Martian surface. The lander
dug, scooped, baked, sniffed and tasted the Red Planet's soil. Among
early results, it verified the presence of water-ice in the Martian
subsurface, which NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter first detected remotely
in 2002. Phoenix's cameras also returned more than 25,000 pictures
from sweeping vistas to near the atomic level using the first atomic
force microscope ever used outside Earth.

"Phoenix not only met the tremendous challenge of landing safely, it
accomplished scientific investigations on 149 of its 152 Martian days
as a result of dedicated work by a talented team," said Phoenix
Project Manager Barry Goldstein at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif.

Phoenix's preliminary science accomplishments advance the goal of
studying whether the Martian arctic environment has ever been
favorable for microbes. Additional findings include documenting a
mildly alkaline soil environment unlike any found by earlier Mars
missions; finding small concentrations of salts that could be
nutrients for life; discovering perchlorate salt, which has
implications for ice and soil properties; and finding calcium
carbonate, a marker of effects of liquid water.

Phoenix findings also support the goal of learning the history of
water on Mars. These findings include excavating soil above the ice
table, revealing at least two distinct types of ice deposits;
observing snow descending from clouds; providing a mission-long
weather record, with data on temperature, pressure, humidity and
wind; observations of haze, clouds, frost and whirlwinds; and
coordinating with NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to perform
simultaneous ground and orbital observations of Martian weather.

"Phoenix provided an important step to spur the hope that we can show
Mars was once habitable and possibly supported life," said Doug
McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "Phoenix was supported by orbiting NASA
spacecraft providing communications relay while producing their own
fascinating science. With the upcoming launch of the Mars Science
Laboratory, the Mars Program never sleeps."

The University of Arizona leads the Phoenix mission with project
management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin
Corporation in Denver. International contributions came from the
Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the
universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck
Institute in Germany; the Finnish Meteorological Institute; and
Imperial College of London.

For additional information about Phoenix mission findings, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix
        
-end-
Received on Mon 10 Nov 2008 06:40:21 PM PST