PHOENIX MARS LANDER

PHOENIX MARS LANDER

Overview

Mars is a cold desert planet with no liquid water on its surface. But in the Martian arctic, water ice lurks just below ground level. Discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 show large amounts of subsurface water ice in the northern arctic plain. The Phoenix lander targets this circumpolar region using a robotic arm to dig through the protective top soil layer to the water ice below and ultimately, to bring both soil and water ice to the lander platform for sophisticated scientific analysis.

The complement of the Phoenix spacecraft and it scientific instruments are ideally suited to uncover clues to the geologic history and biological potential of the Martian arctic. Phoenix will be the first mission to return data from either polar region providing an important contribution to the overall Mars science strategy "Follow the Water" and will be instrumental in achieving the four science goals of NASA's long-term Mars Exploration Program.

1) Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars

2) Characterize the Climate of Mars

3) Characterize the Geology of Mars

4) Prepare for Human Exploration

The Phoenix Mission has two bold objectives to support these goals, which are to (1) study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.

Image Below: This map centered on the north pole of Mars is based on gamma rays from the element hydrogen -- mainly in the form of water ice. Regions of high ice content are shown in violet and blue and those low in ice content are shown in red. The very ice-rich region at the North Pole is due to a permanent polar cap of water ice on the surface. Elsewhere in this region, the ice is buried under several to a few tens of centimeters of dry soil. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

Objectives

Objective 1: Study the History of Water in All its Phases

Currently, water on Mars' surface and atmosphere exists in two states: gas and solid. At the poles, the interaction between the solid water ice at and just below the surface and the gaseous water vapor in the atmosphere is believed to be critical to the weather and climate of Mars. Phoenix will be the first mission to collect meteorological data in the Martian arctic needed by scientists to accurately model Mars' past climate and predict future weather processes.

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.

Objective 2: Search for Evidence of Habitable Zone and Assess the Biological Potential of the Ice-Soil Boundary

Recent discoveries have shown that life can exist in the most extreme conditions. Indeed, it is possible that bacterial spores can lie dormant in bitterly cold, dry, and airless conditions for millions of years and become activated once conditions become favorable. Such dormant microbial colonies may exist in the Martian arctic, where due to the periodic wobbling of the planet, liquid water may exist for brief periods about every 100,000 years making the soil environment habitable.

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. Identified by chemical analysis, Phoenix will also look at reduction-oxidation (redox) molecular pairs that may determine whether the potential chemical energy of the soil can sustain life, as well as other soil properties critical to determine habitability such as pH and saltiness.

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. Powerful oxidants that can break apart organic molecules 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.

Image Below: Three-dimensional image of the Martian arctic created using data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) aboard Global Surveyor.

Launch Coverage

Spacecraft: Phoenix
Launch Vehicle: Delta II
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 17-A
Launch Date: Aug. 4, 2007
Launch Time: 5:26:34 a.m. EDT


Perfect Early Morning Liftoff for Phoenix
Sitting atop a Delta II rocket, the Phoenix spacecraft experienced a successful early-morning liftoff for the beginning of its journey toward Mars. After a flawless countdown with perfect weather conditions, the rocket roared to life as it lit up the dark morning sky.

Image above: The Delta II rocket with the Phoenix spacecraft onboard lifts off. Image credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph and John Kechele

The Rocket
The Phoenix spacecraft began its journey toward Mars aboard a Delta II rocket. The Delta II is designed to boost medium-sized satellites and robotic explorers into space. NASA selected a model 7925 for this mission, which is a three-stage rocket equipped with nine strap-on solid rocket boosters and a 9.5-foot payload fairing to protect the spacecraft during launch.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander uses its Meteorological Station and its Robotic Arm at the same time in this artist's concept of the spacecraft on the surface of Mars.

The other instruments in the spacecraft's science payload are the Surface Stereoscopic Imager; the Microscopy, Electro chemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer; the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer; the Mars Descent Imager; and the Robotic Arm Camera.

The dark "wings" to either side of the Lander’s main body are solar panels for providing electric power.

The Phoenix mission is led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership with Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. International contributions for Phoenix are provided by the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Neufchatel (Switzerland), the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the Max Planck Institute (Germany) and the Finnish Meteorological institute. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In this artist's concept illustration, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander begins to shut down operations as winter sets in. The far-northern latitudes on Mars experience no sunlight during winter. This will mark the end of the mission because the solar panels can no longer charge the batteries on the lander. Frost covering the region as the atmosphere cools will bury the lander in ice.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona

This artist's concept depicts NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander a moment before its 2008 touchdown on the arctic plains of Mars. Pulsed rocket engines control the spacecraft's speed during the final seconds of descent.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona