From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Wed Aug 06 2003 - 07:30:33 PDT
----- Original Message -----
From: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 7:37 PM
To: ljk4_at_msn.com
Subject: Mars 2007 'Phoenix' Will Study Water Near Mars' North Pole
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JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
Guy Webster (818) 354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Lori Stiles (520) 621-1877
University of Arizona, Tucson
Donald Savage (202) 358-1727
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
NEWS RELEASE: 2003-107 August 4, 2003
Mars 2007 'Phoenix' Will Study Water Near Mars' North Pole
In May 2008, the progeny of two promising U.S. missions to Mars will
deploy a lander to the water-ice-rich northern polar region, dig with
a robotic arm into arctic terrain for clues on the history of water,
and search for environments suitable for microbes.
NASA today announced that it has selected the University of Arizona
"Phoenix" mission for launch in 2007 as what is hoped will be the
first in a new line of smaller competed "Scout" missions in the
agency's Mars Exploration Program.
Dr. Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory heads the Phoenix mission, named for the mythological bird
that is repeatedly reborn of ashes. The $325 million NASA award is
more than six times larger than any other single research grant in
University of Arizona history.
"The selection of Phoenix completes almost two years of intense
competition with other institutions," Smith said. "I am overjoyed that
we can now begin the real work that will lead to a successful mission
to Mars."
Phoenix is a partnership of universities, NASA centers, and the
aerospace industry. The science instruments and operations will be a
University of Arizona responsibility. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif., will manage the project and provide mission
design. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, will build and test the
spacecraft. Canadian partners will provide the meteorological
instrumentation, including an innovative laser-based sensor.
Phoenix has the scientific capability "to change our thinking about
the origins of life on other worlds," Smith said. "Even though the
northern plains are thought to be too cold now for water to exist as a
liquid, periodic variations in the martian orbit allow a warmer
climate to develop every 50,000 years. During these periods the ice
can melt, dormant organisms could come back to life, (if there are
indeed any), and evolution can proceed. Our mission will verify
whether the northern plains are indeed a last viable habitat on Mars."
The lander for Phoenix was built and was being tested to fly as part
of the 2001 Mars Surveyor Program, but the program was canceled after
the Mars Polar Lander was lost upon landing near Mars' south pole in
December 1999. Since then, the 2001 lander has been stored in a clean
room at Lockheed Martin in Denver, managed by NASA's new Mars
Exploration Program as a flight asset.
Renamed Phoenix, it will carry improved versions of University of
Arizona panoramic cameras and volatiles-analysis instrument from the
ill-fated Mars Polar Lander, as well as experiments that had been
built for the 2001 Mars Surveyor Program, including a JPL
trench-digging robot arm and a chemistry-microscopy instrument. The
science payload also includes a descent imager and a suite of
meteorological instruments.
The mission has two goals. One is to study the geologic history of
water, the key to unlocking the story of past climate change. Two is
to search for evidence of a habitable zone that may exist in the
ice-soil boundary, the "biological paydirt."
The Phoenix robotic arm will scoop up martian soil samples and deliver
them for heating into tiny ovens of the volatiles-analysis instrument
so team members can measure how much water vapor and carbon dioxide
gas are given off, how much water ice the samples contain, and what
minerals are present that may have formed during a wetter, warmer past
climate. The instrument, called thermal evolved gas analyzer, will
also measure any organic volatiles.
Using another instrument, researchers will examine soil particles as
small as 16 microns across. They will measure electrical and thermal
conductivity of soil particles using a probe on the robotic arm scoop.
One of the most interesting experiments is the wet chemistry
laboratory, Smith said.
"We plan to scoop up some soil, put it in a cell, add water, shake it
up, and measure the impurities dissolved in the water that have
leached out from the soil. This is important, because if the soil ever
gets wet, we'll know if microbes could survive. We'll know if the wet
soil is super acidic or alkaline and salty, or full of oxidants that
can destroy life. We'll test the environment that microbes might have
had to live and grow in," Smith said.
Information is available online about NASA's Mars exploration at
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/ and about Phoenix
at http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/ .
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
manages the Mars Scout Program for the NASA Office of Space Science,
Washington, D.C.
-end-
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