Phoenix - End of Mission Options

[ugordan]

MRO images show that the solar panels on Phoenix were damaged by a heavy coating of dust and ice during the Martian winter, as predicted.

Well, after looking at those images side by side, this does not bode well for chances of spotting Mars Polar Lander. After only one winter basically all objects "merged" into their surroundings. To say nothing of the parachute.

[nprev]

Yeah, really. That's a very dramatic difference over one Martian year.

Even if it is eventually found, it seems unlikely now that we would be able to determine anything useful about the landing circumstances (unless it was a high-velocity impact). Phoenix is nearly unrecognizable already; can't even tell that the panels had once been fully deployed. Wonder how long until the landing struts might possibly give out?

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

The parachute is totally invisible now, extraordinary.

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2010/...16_2485_cut.jpg

As others have said, quite obvious why we haven't found MPL yet.

[nprev]

I guess there's still some hope of finding the early Soviet landers & Beagle II since presumably they're subject to dust deposition alone, but this makes me much less optimistic.

[Paolo]

but this makes me much less optimistic.

I think that the Vikings should be used for comparison here, and their parachutes were still visible, if I remember correctly

[MahFL]

Squished by CO2

[Explorer1]

It almost looks as if the parachute was torn away from the backshell by winds! But the atmosphere is too thin for that to occur no matter how fast they blow, correct?
Will anything at all be visible after another winter, I wonder.

[nprev]

Squished by CO2

And a bit of H2O also, I'd say. IIRC, the frosts around V2 were thought to be a 6:1 CO2/H2O clathrate.

Interestingly, something like that would have been lighter than pure CO2 snow per 'absolute' unit of volume, if you know what I mean. (Have no idea how crystallization, etc. would affect the density of the actual deposits.)

[Hungry4info]

My hypothesis of significant movement of the lander is not supported by the new images.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Bill Harris]

This makes strong statment about the weathering, erosional and depositional processes at work in the Martian polar regions. Truly an alien environment.

It will be very instructive to visit this "test plot" in a few decades...

--Bill

[ElkGroveDan]

It would be informative from an engineering perspective to get a better understanding of exactly how they separated and where they landed. I wonder if it would be difficult to plan for a super-res sequence of 5 or 10 images taken at the exact same local time on roughly consecutive days. I think it would also be useful to track the shadows/shape on several occasions as the sun climbs higher toward summer. I guess that would exceed the boundaries of a HI-WISH request.

[Hungry4info]

Working one final animation. It does seem the features I interpreted as Phoenix were indeed ice patches. The shading that caused me to think the lander was on its side is explained by the shadow of the lander partially covering an ice patch.

This is almost the same .gif as earlier, but with another frame. The post-arrival, and post-spring, and the most recent images are all aligned here.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[DFinfrock]

The parachute is totally invisible now, extraordinary.

Is it possible that the extreme cold of the Martian polar winter caused a degradation of the strength of the cords attaching the parachute to the backshell? If those cords were severed, then it wouldn't take so much wind to blow the parachute to another distant location.

[PDP8E]

Hi Hungry4info,

That is a nice animation - thanks!

[antipode]

That's very helpful Hungry, seems to me that I can see both solar panels still attached to the body of the craft on the latter two frames - they don't seem to have been snapped off.

P