To head that off, I think there's just about zero chance that the soil problem will be an impasse. If the arm can dig the stuff up in the first place, it can smash it up for at least some of the TEGA ovens. Barring some OTHER problem, the clumpiness problem will be solved.

Seeing that ice layer under the lander is a big win by itself. But as far as the scenery goes, the thrill ends at having another poster. The science of returning a panorama of this landscape is slim to none. This mission is all about TEGA and MECA.

And with MRO up there, we can get a decent panoramic reconstruction of any spot on the planet -- only the extreme foreground needs in situ imaging.

I gave another Outreach talk this morning, at a tiny, village school here in Cumbria - just 30 or so kids in the whole school! - and treated them to my "Tourist's Guide To The Universe". Thanks to the already mentioned generosity of the Phoenix Outreach team I was able to give all my group of 22 kids a Phoenix sticker, which they were delighted with (as was their teacher, who somehow acquired one for herself...!). During the talk's Mars section I mentioned Phoenix, obviously, and mentioned the problem with TEGA, explaining that the dust wasn't falling through the grille. One student suggested - without any prompting, which I thought was very cool - using the robot arm scoop to pat at the dust and push some through. But another suggested a rather radical alternative:

"Why don't they scoop up one of those stones", he suggested, pointing at the rocks scattered around the lander, "and drop it onto the dust? That would shake it up, wouldn't it?"

Click to view attachment

So, there you have it, Phoenix team, your solution. Obvious really!

But not a televised press conference?

Nope, but you can still listen to it: http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html

Thanks!

Let us know what you hear, my computer doesn't have sound any more. Thanks.

Thanks indeed. With one eye on Euro 2008 I am on line, awaiting the latest from NASA.

Meanwhile I am trying to think about options to get out of the impasse, like all of us I´m sure.

Brute force in my view will not work: even if individual soil/ice particles have dimensions well inside the 1 mm square constraints of the fine mesh, particles will tend to form "bridges" above the mesh preventing more than only a few particles to fall through. I have seen this process first-hand during some physics lessons, it was very interesting to see how large a mesh size had to be to let small ballbearings fall through. Rather big, I recall!

The only thing that can help us out I believe is vibration - to break up this process of bridges forming above the mesh. I´ll keep my fingers crossed!

Press Conference on now...

They gave TEGA a "shake" at a higher frequency -- didn't work. Just a few particles but not enough for an analysis. But there is confirmation that the vibrator does work.

Going to try again with the vibrator. If that doesn't work they will go to a different TEGA slot and drop very small amounts of soil.

Going to operate the vibrator at different times of day to assess the effects of different temperatures.

Optimistic that when they "dribble soil on slowly it will in fact go through"

some notes:

* the spring on the ground is from the bio-barrier

* the scoop has acquired another sample; it "appears cloddy." They are going to do a "sprinkle test" before delivering to MECA

* Boynton: on Saturday they found out they had a large amount of soil delivered to the screen, virtually none of it made it down through the funnel into the oven,

* they ran the vibrator at a higher frequency but just found out today that only a few particles made it to the oven. Good news is that the vibrator is indeed operational.

* They're going to try to run the vibrator again, at three different times of day (different temperatures, humidities). If that fails they are going to try to "sprinkle" a smaller amount of soil on the screen to avoid clogging it up. It should be several days before this is completed.

* Q: what is causing the clumping? A: We aren't sure what's causing the clumpiness. Maybe moisture, salts, electrostatics.

* They are confident that the detector (photocell and LED) works well.

* Q: How much material do you need in the oven? A: 20-30mg. We probably only have a milligram or so in the oven (a couple particles).

* Q: With the doors covered by a good bit of soil--will that impede future measurements? A: No. We're going to open door 5 next which should shake the soil out of the way. The springs are strong enough to do this.

* Q: Is anybody fearful that this isn't going to work? A: We think that maybe we just put too much soil into this first sample. By "dribbling" soil with future samples, we're confident we can get it to work.

* Q: Are you surprised by the cloddiness? A: No.

* Q: When do you start to get worried about this? A: At least a week or two. We have a number of things to try. We aren't optimistic about further shaking, but are more optimistic about the "dribbling" technique.

Well, I suppose that's good news of sorts. Maybe if they shake it for long enough they will get a good sample.

Thanks for keeping us updated.

I don't know anything that the rest of you don't know about what's going on with TEGA... All I can say is, it has had it's problems, at least 3 that I can name, namely the door opening, the sample entering, and the problem mentioned at the beginning of this post (Was it a broken filament or something?). That's alot of problems for an instrument. Still, it is a very difficult task they are undertaking...

EDIT: I might add while I don't know much about Phoenix operations, I do know a fair amount about how it should work. I've been to the PIT at least 3 times (The area at the UA where they did alot of testing), including once that wasn't a public tour. I've been able to learn alot about some things in operations, although I dare say there's alot of people who know more than I. I also worked on my senior design project with one of the students who worked in the PIT, so I know the most about things relating to things tested in the PIT, namely the robotic arm. Other than that...

notes continued:

They will be using the rasp to vibrate the scoop to cause the material to dribble out (as a function of the angle of the scoop). This will be tried with MECA first & then if it works, the game plan is to try it with TEGA.

Q: How will you try this sprinkling on the TEGA? A: We anticipate that once we figure out how the material reacts to this sprinkling, we'll try to dribble a small amount towards the top of the screen and allow it to slide down towards the bottom of the screen. We also may use the robotic arm to crush the sample ahead of time.

Q: Where will oven 5's sample come from? A: We would anticipate it would be more towards the National Park area than where the first sample came from.

Q: Where would you be right now if there hadn't been any glitches? A: We would have been done with the first TEGA sample if everything had gone perfectly, and we'd be working with the first optical microscope sample and first wet chemistry sample by now.

Q: What is causing the clumping? A:The material may have gotten a little bit wet during the landing and exposure to the thrusters. Maybe there are salts in the soil causing salt cementation. The particles may be interlocking, as well as electrostatic forces.

Q: There are UV lights on the MECA instruments. Might these UV lights actually *create* organic molecules? A: Don't know why the MECA team included these lights.

Thank you both for your quick summaries; much appreciated!

Airbag

If they're referring to the UV LEDs in the MECA optical microscope, I believe they are intended to be used to detect fluorescence.

For me a positive signal from today´s telecon was the statement that "ice is a completely different material" (from a deeper trench). I.e. I sense confidence that the mechanics of scraping - pulverizing - screening of ice-containing materials from deeper trenches is well developed.

In fact, I wouldn´t mind to leave the topsoil alone and start "digging for gold" right away.

PS
Holland-Italy is already 2-nil before halftime, another "gold" in the making?

I'm not sure what the UV LED could do to the soil that sun exposure wouldt've have done already (and yes, I know why the LED is there, I just don't understand the question).

Actually the question was by some guy named Moose or something like that. He asked if the UV flourescence lights had possibly been included intentionally in order to identify biology. There was a long silence, I believe because they always want to be careful of these overboard sensationalist questions. They ultimately deferred and said they didn't know why the instrument was built that way.

...what did this guy think this was, an episode of CSI? There are lots of fluorescent minerals--salt as in halite being one of them.

Hate to see the Phoenix team being dragged into possibly sticky situations like that. Bet old "Moose" there is disinvited from future pressers, and with good reason. Trying to bait people into making controversial statements in science is reprehensible.

The audio will be up on the NASA site soon anyway, but if anybody doesn't want to wait, I put an mp3 of it here:

PHX telecon 6/9/2008

No, that's just what sells. Now, if a scientist is stupid enough to take the bait, that's reprehensible.

Brian

I didn't get that impression about that guy, though I certainly could be wrong. He seemed more interested in the answer to what he thought was an interesting question, not so much creating a sensational angle for his story. Like I said, just my impression.

*shrug*

On the next mission with an instrument like that, I recommend a moving robotic foot. When my electronics don't work, I usually try kicking them...sometimes it works

Same here. He seemed to have a lot of detailed questions like he was following things very closely.

Holland 3 Italy0
Nasa 0 TEGA 1

I particularly liked learning of the "sprinkle tests" they are doing. Using the rasp to induce vibrations on the scoop, that's NASA problem-solving at its best! Sol 16 seems a little ambitious to me for delivery of a sample to MECA OM, though. Seems like they may need to experiment with many different scoop angles first. But I don't claim any expertise in the area, that's for sure.

The guy was reporting from a major space-related magazine, so he certainly knows the history of Phoenix and the mission. They have stated overtly on numerous occasions that the mission is NOT to detect biology. The mission is to detect evidence of past or present conditions that might be favorable to biology; ergo the reporter surmising that one instrument might have been designed otherwise was just plain irresponsible.

Hmmm, interesting discussion this. Brings to the surface thoughts I've been thinking, but pushing down, for a while, but what the heck...

I have to put my hand on my heart and say that I feel... uncomfortable... when people who simply raise the question of Phoenix finding life, or evidence of past life, on Mars, are not taken seriously, because after all there is a possibility - however incredibly remote - that Phoenix might just do that, isn't there? I know, I know, it's not a mission aim, and the Phoenix team have, rightly, gone to great pains to dampen down expectations in that area, but nevertheless there is a small chance that Phoenix's instruments could turn up something... amazing.

Just to be clear here, I am not suggesting that Phoenix is going to reveal a thriving subsurface colony of microbes or anything like that! That's ridiculous, as ridiculous - if that's possible! - as claims being made elsewhere that Phoenix has already imaged skulls, bone fragments and even neurons, etc! But if I've read the literature correctly, and read interviews with Phoenix scientists correctly, then yes, there's a chance that Phoenix might find Something, so people asking about that possibility aren't nutters just to enquire about that, are they?

Here on UMSF we're spoiled; we're all - mainly thanks to each other, I'd say - very, very well educated about the geology of Mars, the Phoenix mission, and the possibility of Phoenix learning that Mars was once a much more life-friendly place than it is now. But we're a minority, and the majority of people out there who read newspapers, watch NASA TV, visit the Phoenix website(s) and others, keep seeing the word "life" with regard to Phoenix, so it's no surprise that Phoenix has come to represent the latest "hunt" for life on Mars. We here know that's not the case, but it's the public perception. We have to live with that.

And I really don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, you know? I mean, let's be honest here, if the microscope on Phoenix shows us a picture of a micro-fossil, none of us are going to moan "Oh, great, now we'll never find out the composition of those mineral grains!" will we? If Phoenix should find traces of past life in the ice beneath the landing site, none of us are going to throw our hands up in despair and say "No! I wanted to look at THAT rock over there!" are we?

So, to misquote the WOTW song, the chances of anything living being found by Phoenix are a million to one... maybe even a billion to one... but how we'd all celebrate of we beat those odds...

Anyway, not woo-wooing, really I'm not. And not defending anyone in particular. I'm just thinking outloud really, sitting here with a cat sleeping peacefully across my keyboard, wondering what Phoenix is going to find. Probably nothing. Possibly something. But either way I don't think it's necessarily wrong to ask about it.

I would have thought best way would be to vibrate the rasp on the scoop as well as vibrate the mesh screen at the same time that they are actually dumping the sample onto the screen. That way as much agitation as possible going on which may prevent the immediate clumping onto the mesh screen.

Also could some of the problem be that the mesh itself may be getting charged electrostaticaly and may actually be 'attracting' the soil / dust particles so that they are forming a barrier on both upper and lower surfaces of the meash and hence clogging any further particles coming through. Would there be any way of discharging such static (if it exists) prior to the dump taking place ?

I know we're now far afield of this thread's topic, but I would also like to add that a reporter cannot write what a specific instrument CANNOT do unless he first asks the question. There's a difference between asking a question and reporting the answer accurately and reporting on ratings-grabbing assumptions (like the recent toilet issue on the ISS -- some reporters continued to insinuate that the station may be de-manned, though that was not the case).

I'll drop the subject. I don't want to be accused of leading this thread down the wrong path (too late).

Good points Stu. But as you noted the vast majority of folks are highly uninformed (or should I say yet-to-be-informed ) on most of this science. Unfortunately it is that atmosphere that allows these nutters to thrive. They take bits and pieces of unrelated data and out-of-context comments and spin it all into some sensational nonsense that detracts from the true nature of the mission. The team needs to stay on message here and not allow parasitic newshounds to steal their years of hard work for one screaming headline. As you say it would be exciting, but if we so much as hint at that possibility, the popular media will devour the entire mission and lable it a failure if anything less results.

I wondered about the rasp and vibrator working together too, and wished I was a reporter on the line to ask it.

Good thought on your second idea too!

Listened again to the UV LED question--the reporter (from Astronomy magazine) didn't ask if the UV light would make organics, he noted that the explicit purpose of the lights was that they would make certain minerals fluoresce, but the reporter notes they would also make organics fluoresce, sometimes in small amounts, and asked if that was a consideration in adding the UV lights to the microscopy stage.

I'll just add my 2 cents. If I were designing a mission like Phoenix, and I could do something simple that would allow it to detect life, then I would do it. I wouldn't say anything to the public though unless we found something, because, as all of us know, Phoenix is not meant to find life on Mars. However, there is still a chance that it could. For instance, if it landed on a Martian ant hill, it could tell something was there. Still, it would not be fun to be put on the spot like that...

Relevant to that, this is interesting, from Fluorescent Labels for In Situ Wet Chemistry Experiments:

Just running through some ideas here;

Viking results seemed to imply 'unusual' peroxides and superoxides in the soil, could we be seeing some kind of chemical interaction with the mesh material? Or could the mesh material be catalyzing some kind of chemical reaction in the sample?

Can the chlorides and peroxides polymerize themselves and/or CO2? Is the clumpiness telling us something related and significant as to the chemical properties of these substances??


What we are currently looking at as a significant problem with conducting these tests might actually be telling us something pretty important about these Martian materials.

Goes with the territory I'd say, when you're working on a mission that refers to "life" in its publicity, educational and media material so often. They're big boys, they can take it, I'm sure.

Sprinkle test

Looks good.

Looks good? I'd wait until we see actual images...

The Tamu site seems to have the raw images for tosol already arriving, while there is nothing new at the UA site. A glitch in the UA server? :-P

Anyway the sprinkle test seems to be achieving what's intended, at least in my view.

Vibrates, sprinkles, and folds your laundry.
Click to view attachment
(Animation Sol15 sprinkle-test-prep)
Astro0

Thanks Astro.
I'm currious to know if "they" are pleased with that.
Next conference on NTV is for tomorrow 3pm (Eastern); do you know if a call conference is schedulled for tonight ?

No, I don't think there is a press conference today.

I can't imagine they are not pleased with that, looks perfect!

It still looks a bit clumpy to me, there appears to be a lower limit on "grain" sizes from the pictures. I hope they're small enough to pass through the TEGA mesh this time. It's about time that instrument got a break already.

>Vibrates, sprinkles, and folds your laundry

So the question begs... did this maneuver inspire your "Sample Delivery" image, or was it vice versa?

It shouldn't be much of a suprise that there are problems with sample delivery to the TEGA ports. This regolith has evolved over thousands or millions of years under alien conditions. From the MER wheel-spinning excursions we already knew that this soil has unusual physical properties, and there will need to be in-situ tests to see how to get this material through the mesh.

--Bill

> So the question begs... did this maneuver inspire your "Sample Delivery" image, or was it vice versa?

Actually when I did that image it was more a case of thinking...
"Phoenix Report: Sol 122: Still trying to get a decent sample into TEGA instrument. Another attempt tosol."

But phew, the sprinkle test does look like good news.

Astro0

Poor MECA, all buried in dirt. I guess they couldn't find a large enough portion of the lander deck to test this with.

Hm, impromptu additional thermal insulation? Now there is a thought...

Airbag

My understanding of the way they are doing the operation is : they vibrate WHILE manoeuvring the scoop so particules fall slowly and bit by bit. Is that right ?
The way I will do it (please do not blame me) : sort them out before delivering to TEGA by :
1- vibrate the scoop long enought keeping ALL the soil inside
2- check visualy if smallest are biggest are separated
3- get rid of the bigger particules if they are at the top of the scoop or if they are at the back put the little one slowly into TEGA first before the biggest one fall.
...may be it is what they are doing! Please tell me your understanding

That's pretty much my understanding too, though they weren't clear at the briefing yesterday if the steps they are taking for the demonstration test would be the same as what they would use if that test was successful. What I mean is, part one of the "sprinkle test" was to try to sort out (and expel) the larger clumps over their dumping site on the surface before moving over MECA and doing the same thing. I'm not sure if this two part "sprinkle technique" will be used each time, or if it will only be used when hovering over the instrument to give a sample.

The apron of fallout around the bolts definitely looks like it's made of smaller particles. This case is closed. I may chew through some pens before we get the first actual data from TEGA (and the soil is the less interesting thing in comparison with the ice), but it's good to see things moving ahead.