[FPSPACE] FW: Phoenix Mission Status Report

[LARRY KLAES]

>From: "NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory" <info at jpl.nasa.gov>
>Reply-To: <info at jpl.nasa.gov>
>Subject: Phoenix Mission Status Report
>Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:07:02 -0700
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>         NASA JPL news
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>Veronica McGregor 818-354-9452
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>                     Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, 
>Calif.                                          
>Veronica.mcgregor at jpl.nasa.gov
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>Phoenix Mission Status 
>Report                                                        October 29, 
>2008
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>                     PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA'S Phoenix Mars Lander entered 
>safe mode late yesterday in response to a low-power fault brought on by 
>deteriorating weather conditions. While engineers anticipated that a fault 
>could occur due to the diminishing power supply, the lander also 
>unexpectedly switched to the "B" side of its redundant electronics and shut 
>down one of its two batteries.
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>During safe mode, the lander stops non-critical activities and awaits 
>further instructions from the mission team. Within hours of receiving 
>information of the safing event, mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
>Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and at Lockheed Martin in Denver, were able 
>to send commands to restart battery charging. It is not likely that any 
>energy was lost.
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>Weather conditions at the landing site in the north polar region of Mars 
>have deteriorated in recent days, with overnight temperatures falling to 
>--141F (-96C), and daytime temperatures only as high as -50F (-45C), the 
>lowest temperatures experienced so far in the mission. A mild dust storm 
>blowing through the area, along with water-ice clouds, further complicated 
>the situation by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the lander's 
>solar arrays, thereby reducing the amount of power it could generate. Low 
>temperatures caused the lander's battery heaters to turn on Tuesday for the 
>first time, creating another drain on precious power supplies.
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>Science activities will remain on hold for the next several days to allow 
>the spacecraft to recharge and conserve power. Attempts to resume normal 
>operations will not take place before the weekend.
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>"This is a precarious time for Phoenix," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry 
>Goldstein of JPL. "We're in the bonus round of the extended mission, and 
>we're aware that the end could come at any time. The engineering team is 
>doing all it can to keep the spacecraft alive and collecting science, but 
>at this point survivability depends on some factors out of our control, 
>such as the weather and temperatures on Mars."
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>The ability to communicate with the spacecraft has not been impacted. 
>However, the team decided to cancel communication sessions Wednesday 
>morning in order to conserve spacecraft power. The next communication pass 
>is anticipated at 9:30 p.m. PDT Wednesday.
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>Yesterday, the mission announced plans to turn off four heaters, one at a 
>time, in an effort to preserve power. The faults experienced late Tuesday 
>prompted engineers to command the lander to shut down two heaters instead 
>of one as originally planned. One of those heaters warmed electronics for 
>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. The second heater served the lander's pyrotechnic 
>initiation unit, which hasn't been used since landing.   By turning off 
>selected heaters, the mission hopes to preserve power and prolong the use 
>of the lander's camera and meteorological instruments.
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>Originally scheduled to last 90 days, Phoenix has completed a fifth month 
>of exploration in the Martian arctic. As the Martian northern hemisphere 
>shifts from summer to autumn, the lander was expected to generate less 
>power due to fewer hours of sunlight reaching its solar panels. "It could 
>be a matter of days, or weeks, before the daily power generated by Phoenix 
>is less than needed to operate the spacecraft," said JPL mission manager 
>Chris Lewicki. "We have only a few options left to reduce the energy 
>usage."
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>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. 
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