Nobody Wants to Talk About Phoenix?

[Que]

Exploration and Investigation (in response to a now deleted critical post)
History recalls that there have always been explorers in the human race --  people who want to expand their horizons, investigate their surroundings, and understand the complex nature of the environment, the Earth, the Solar System, and Space itself. Apart from space exploration, there are countless scientists around the world 'expanding their horizons' in many fields of endeavor. Who decides how much funding those fields of endeavor will receive, and who decides which ones are worthy of receiving funds? In the end it is likely to be a political decision. A wealthy country can probably afford to fund scientific investigations as well as looking after the poorer members of its society.

With regard to the investigation of the northern plain by Phoenix, this is a quote from NASA :-
"Liquid water does not currently exist on the surface of Mars, but evidence from Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey and Exploration Rover missions suggest that water once flowed in canyons and persisted in shallow lakes billions of years ago. However, Phoenix will probe the history of liquid water that may have existed in the arctic as recently as 100,000 years ago. Scientists will better understand the history of the Martian arctic after analyzing the chemistry and mineralogy of the soil and ice using robust instruments.
"Phoenix will assess the habitability of the Martian northern environment by using sophisticated chemical experiments to assess the soil's composition of life-giving elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and hydrogen.
"Despite having the proper ingredients to sustain life, the Martian soil may also contain hazards that prevent biological growth, such as powerful oxidants that break apart organic molecules. Those oxidants are expected in dry environments bathed in UV light, such as the surface of Mars. But a few inches below the surface, the soil could protect organisms from the harmful solar radiation. Phoenix will dig deep enough into the soil to analyze the soil environment potentially protected from UV looking for organic signatures and potential habitability."

This is part of a speech given by Michael Griffin (NASA Adminstrator) to the 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on March 10, 2008 :-
"To me, the person who best captured NASA’s true mission was Gene Roddenberry, with his immortal line about the mission of the Starship Enterprise, “To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no [one] has gone before.” That’s almost perfect; I think we’re more likely to create new civilizations than to find others, but I love those lines, and if it wasn’t for the royalties we’d have to pay, and of course the split infinitive…

"All joking aside, there are several nuggets of wisdom in these words, nuggets that speak not only to the public’s perception of what we do at NASA, but also serve to provide a deep sense of purpose to the work you all perform as lunar and planetary scientists. You here today are the ones who explore strange new worlds, seek new life, and who go where no one has gone before. Do you ever think about what life might be like for working scientists a few hundred years from now, maybe by comparing the trails we are blazing today with those cleared for us by Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler and many other astronomers and planetary scientists? Could they have ever imagined what we are doing today? Can we possibly foresee anything of the world of, say, the 26th Century? We are living today in exciting times. Planetary science is going through a true Renaissance age; some of the discoveries of this age will be discussed at greater length right here at this conference. For example, it had been 33 years since NASA last flew by the planet Mercury with Mariner 10. But just two months ago, MESSENGER recorded spectra and snapped over 1,200 images of previously unseen features on the planet Mercury’s surface, and we will see even more this October during its next flyby. I can’t wait. Meanwhile, in orbit around the planet Saturn, Cassini will fly within 50 kilometers of Enceladus this Wednesday to sample water-ice samples and other gases. Previously, Cassini revealed that Saturn’s planet-sized, organic-rich moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves here on Earth. And who among us was not awed last year by the time-lapse images from New Horizons when it observed a spectacular 200-mile-high volcanic eruption from the Jovian moon Io, and spotted the infrared glow from at least six other active volcanoes?

"We are exploring strange new worlds today, and you are the scientists who are making it happen. It may not be as dramatic as portrayed in science fiction – but it’s not fiction. It’s real. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is currently operating over fifty flight missions in the various Earth and space science disciplines, and Alan Stern’s team has heeded the advice of the science community in formulating a more balanced portfolio of missions – large, medium, and small missions – while addressing the priorities articulated by the Congress, President, and various science communities.

"While we might all wish we had more money to fund each and every space mission ever desired or proposed, it is a fact across, stretching across multiple Presidential Administrations and Congresses, that NASA simply does not have the budget resources to accomplish all of the many and varied space and aeronautics missions that our many constituencies would like us to do. The President’s request for NASA in FY 2009 is $17.6 billion out of $3.1 trillion for all U.S. government spending, less than 6/10ths of a percent of the entire Federal budget. We don’t get anything like the 24% of the budget that the average American thinks we receive, and so we must set priorities, establish a careful balance between them, and ask members of the space community to respect these priorities as well as NASA’s other mission areas, human spaceflight and aeronautics research, as worthy and noble endeavors in their own right."
[emphasis by me!]

[Iridium]

Hate to bring this up, but here goes.
If we can't put a human on the moon (this year at least), how do the networks expect me to believe that a government funded agency is able to land a rocket on another planet?  What the hell are they looking for?  Uranium?  Couldn't get it back here even if they could find some.  I can make ice in a freezer for about 12 cents.  I just do not see the point in navigating some billion dollar spacecraft a million miles away to say to the world "Behold, we have found ice."  S T U P I D!  In no way shape or form will I nor any of my immediate descendants benefit from this exploration.  We will however, suck it up, not question it, and pay for it.

It is completely obvious that you are seriously uninformed. That being said, I'll ask that you refrain from any further rantings of your misplaced aggressions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I find it very difficult to afford you such respect when you display such ignorance of the facts. Any other posts that do not contribute something worthwhile to this thread will be deleted with extreme prejudice. Hope that was clear enough for you.

[Jonathan]

It is completely obvious that you are seriously uninformed. That being said, I'll ask that you refrain from any further rantings of your misplaced aggressions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I find it very difficult to afford you such respect when you display such ignorance of the facts. Any other posts that do not contribute something worthwhile to this thread will be deleted with extreme prejudice. Hope that was clear enough for you.

Very nicely put!! I agree!

[Que]

After more than 100 years of searching, scientists find there IS water on Mars
By Micheal Hanlon
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1040356/After-100-years-searching-scientists-IS-water-Mars.html

BONUS POST !!
What the world looks like naked: The amazing image of Earth's geology laid bare
By Daily Mail Reporter
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1040256/What-world-looks-like-naked-The-amazing-image-Earths-geology-laid-bare.html

[Jonathan]

"After more than 100 years of searching, scientists find there IS water on Mars"

Fascinating!!!!!!

[Que]

For anybody interested --

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-177                                                            September 22, 2008

NASA's Phoenix Lander Might Peek Under a Rock

TUCSON, Ariz. -- If the robotic arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander can nudge a rock aside today, scientists on the Phoenix team would like to see what's underneath.

Engineers who develop commands for the robotic arm have prepared a plan to try displacing a rock on the north side of the lander. This rock, roughly the size and shape of a VHS videotape, is informally named "Headless."

"We don't know whether we can do this until we try," said Ashitey Trebi Ollennu, a robotics engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The idea is to move the rock with minimum disturbance to the surface beneath it. You have to get under it enough to lift it as you push it and it doesn't just slip off the scoop."

The lander receives commands for the whole day in the morning, so there's no way to adjust in mid-move if the rock starts slipping. Phoenix took stereo-pair images of Headless to provide a detailed three-dimensional map of it for planning the arm's motions. On Saturday, Sept. 20, the arm enlarged a trench close to Headless. Commands sent to Phoenix Sunday evening, Sept. 21, included a sequence of arm motions for today, intended to slide the rock into the trench.

Moving rocks is not among the many tasks Phoenix's robotic arm was designed to do. If the technique works, the move would expose enough area for digging into the soil that had been beneath Headless.

"The appeal of studying what's underneath is so strong we have to give this a try," said Michael Mellon, a Phoenix science team member at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The scientific motive is related to a hard, icy layer found beneath the surface in trenches that the robotic arm has dug near the lander. Excavating down to that hard layer underneath a rock might provide clues about processes affecting the ice.

"The rocks are darker than the material around them, and they hold heat," Mellon said. "In theory, the ice table should deflect downward under each rock. If we checked and saw this deflection, that would be evidence the ice is probably in equilibrium with the water vapor in the atmosphere."

An alternative possibility, if the icy layer were found closer to the surface under a rock, could by the rock collecting moisture from the atmosphere, with the moisture becoming part of the icy layer.

For more about Phoenix, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix or http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu

[Que]

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-199                                                              October 28, 2008

NASA's Phoenix Mission Faces Survival Challenges

PASADENA, Calif. -- In a race against time and the elements, engineers with NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission hope to extend the lander's survival by gradually shutting down some of its instruments and heaters, starting today.

Originally scheduled to last 90 days, Phoenix has completed a fifth month of exploration in the Martian arctic. As expected, with the Martian northern hemisphere shifting from summer to fall, the lander is generating less power due to shorter days and fewer hours of sunlight reaching its solar panels. At the same time, the spacecraft requires more power to run several survival heaters that allow it to operate even as temperatures decline.

"If we did nothing, it wouldn't be long before the power needed to operate the spacecraft would exceed the amount of power it generates on a daily basis," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "By turning off some heaters and instruments, we can extend the life of the lander by several weeks and still conduct some science."

Over the next several weeks, four survival heaters will be shut down, one at a time, in an effort to conserve power. The heaters serve the purpose of keeping the electronics within tested survivable limits. As each heater is disabled, some of the instruments are also expected to cease operations. The energy saved is intended to power the lander's main camera and meteorological instruments until the very end of the mission.
 
Later today, engineers will send commands to disable the first heater. That heater warms Phoenix's robotic arm, robotic-arm camera, and thermal and evolved-gas analyzer (TEGA), an instrument that bakes and sniffs Martian soil to assess volatile ingredients. Shutting down this heater is expected to save 250 watt-hours of power per Martian day.

The Phoenix team has parked the robotic arm on a representative patch of Martian soil. No additional soil samples will be gathered. The thermal and electrical-conductivity probe (TECP), located on the wrist of the arm, has been inserted into the soil and will continue to measure soil temperature and conductivity, along with atmospheric humidity near the surface. The probe does not need a heater to operate and should continue to send back data for weeks.

Throughout the mission, the lander's robotic arm successfully dug and scraped Martian soil and delivered it to the onboard laboratories. "We turn off this workhorse with the knowledge that it has far exceeded expectations and conducted every operation asked of it," said Ray Arvidson, the robotic arm's co-investigator, and a professor at Washington University, St. Louis.

When power levels necessitate further action, Phoenix engineers will disable a second heater, which serves the lander's pyrotechnic initiation unit. The unit hasn't been used since landing, and disabling its heater is expected to add four to five days to the mission's lifetime. Following that step, engineers would disable a third heater, which warms Phoenix's main camera -- the Surface Stereo Imager --and the meteorological suite of instruments. Electronics that operate the meteorological instruments should generate enough heat on their own to keep most of those instruments and the camera functioning.
 
In the final step, Phoenix engineers may turn off a fourth heater -- one of two survival heaters that warm the spacecraft and its batteries. This would leave one remaining survival heater to run out on its own.

"At that point, Phoenix will be at the mercy of Mars," said Chris Lewicki of JPL, lead mission manger.

Engineers are also preparing for solar conjunction, when the sun is directly between Earth and Mars. Between Nov. 28 and Dec. 13, Mars and the sun will be within two degrees of each other as seen from Earth, blocking radio transmission between the spacecraft and Earth. During that time, no commands will be sent to Phoenix, but daily downlinks from Phoenix will continue through NASA's Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance orbiters.  At this time, controllers can't predict whether the fourth heater would be disabled before or after conjunction.

 
The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

- end -

[Iridium]

Thanks for the updates, Que. It's good to know that others out there want to hear about something other than the Presidential election in the US and financial matters. 

[Que]

>>> This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars <<< 

If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.

This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.

As I’ve said before, there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. My mission lasted five months instead of three, and I’m content knowing that I worked hard and accomplished great things during that time. My work here is done, but I leave behind a legacy of images and data.

In that sense, you haven’t heard the end of me. Scientists will be releasing findings based on my data for months, possibly years, to come and today’s children will read of my discoveries in their textbooks. Engineers will use my experience during landing and surface operations to aid in designing future robotic missions.

But for now, it’s time for me to hunker down and brave what will be a long and cold autumn and winter. Temperatures should reach -199F (-128C) and a polar cap of carbon dioxide ice will envelop me in an icy tomb.

Read more about my fate at: http://gizmodo.com/5082385/this-is-my-farewell-transmission-from-mars

PS. I hope you’ll look to my kindred robotic explorers as they seek to further humankind’s quest to learn and understand our place in the universe. The rovers, Spirit and Opportunity (@MarsRovers), are still operating in their sun belt locations closer to the Martian equator; Cassini (@CassiniSaturn) is sailing around Saturn and its rings; and the Mars Science Laboratory (@MarsScienceLab)—the biggest rover ever built for launch to another planet—is being carefully pieced together for launch next year.

[Iridium]

It has been an honor to know you Phoenix. 

[Jonathan]

"Salty, liquid water has been detected on a leg of the Mars Phoenix Lander and therefore could be present at other locations on the planet, according to analysis by a group of mission scientists led by a University of Michigan professor. This is the first time liquid water has been detected and photographed outside the Earth."-Too Salty to Freeze:www.astrobio.net

[Que]

News release: 2010-008      January 11, 2010

NASA to Check for Unlikely Winter Survival of Mars Lander

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-008&cid=release_2010-008&msource=00810&tr=y&auid=5795777

PASADENA, Calif. -- Beginning Jan. 18, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter will listen for possible, though improbable, radio transmissions from the Phoenix Mars Lander, which completed five months of studying an arctic Martian site in November 2008.

The solar-powered lander operated two months longer than its three-month prime mission during summer on northern Mars before the seasonal ebb of sunshine ended its work. Since then, Phoenix's landing site has gone through autumn, winter and part of spring. The lander's hardware was not designed to survive the temperature extremes and ice-coating load of an arctic Martian winter.

In the extremely unlikely case that Phoenix survived the winter, it is expected to follow instructions programmed on its computer. If systems still operate, once its solar panels generate enough electricity to establish a positive energy balance, the lander would periodically try to communicate with any available Mars relay orbiters in an attempt to reestablish contact with Earth. During each communications attempt, the lander would alternately use each of its two radios and each of its two antennas.

Odyssey will pass over the Phoenix landing site approximately 10 times each day during three consecutive days of listening this month and two longer listening campaigns in February and March.

"We do not expect Phoenix to have survived, and therefore do not expect to hear from it. However, if Phoenix is transmitting, Odyssey will hear it," said Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We will perform a sufficient number of Odyssey contact attempts that if we don't detect a transmission from Phoenix, we can have a high degree of confidence that the lander is not active."

The amount of sunshine at Phoenix's site is currently about the same as when the lander last communicated, on Nov. 2, 2008, with the sun above the horizon about 17 hours each day. The listening attempts will continue until after the sun is above the horizon for the full 24.7 hours of the Martian day at the lander's high-latitude site. During the later attempts in February or March, Odyssey will transmit radio signals that could potentially be heard by Phoenix, as well as passively listening.

If Odyssey does hear from Phoenix, the orbiter will attempt to lock onto the signal and gain information about the lander's status. The initial task would be to determine what capabilities Phoenix retains, information that NASA would consider in decisions about any further steps.

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

Mars Odyssey is managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft.

The successful Phoenix mission was led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin. 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, London.

[Thorum]

UPDATE:

"NASA Orbiter Listening For Phoenix Lander Hears Nothing"

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/01_15_10_pr.php

[PurpleHymnal]

UPDATE:

"NASA Orbiter Listening For Phoenix Lander Hears Nothing"

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/01_15_10_pr.php

Awwww. I'm sorry I missed this. Fare thee well, Phoenix. Hopefully the next time you are in contact with humans, it will be the nudge of a boot from a spacesuit-wearing former Terran....