The team monitoring the sampling of soil on NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has said it is looking a number of options to try and deliver icy samples to the craft's Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA).
Image: Digging in "Snow White" trench. Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ.of Ariz./Texas A&M
Likening the process to scraping a sidewalk, Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis said the team had the choice of three tools on the Lander.
"We have three tools on the scoop to help access ice and icy soil," Arvidson said. "We can scoop material with the backhoe using the front titanium blade; we can scrape the surface with the tungsten carbide secondary blade on the bottom of the scoop; and we can use a high-speed rasp that comes out of a slot at the back of the scoop."
"We expected ice and icy soil to be very strong because of the cold temperatures. It certainly looks like this is the case and we are getting ready to use the rasp to generate the fine icy soil and ice particles needed for delivery to TEGA," he said.
Using a scraping action to collect samples had resulted in material gathering at the bottom of the targeted trench, however little was being collected by the craft's Robotic Arm, said the team.
"It's like trying to pick up dust with a dustpan, but without a broom," said Richard Volpe, an engineer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., on Phoenix's Robotic Arm team, in a University of Arizona statement.
The release said the scoop had remained empty despite two sets of fifty performed scrapes in the trench known as "Snow White" on Monday.
Mission teams are now expected to concentrate on using the motorised rasp within the Robotic Arm to access the hard icy soil and ice deposits believed to lie beneath.
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