Keeping with the practice of sol-by-sol discussions, here it is.

LOL The press have such short attention spans. The mission has hardly started and most of them have gone. lol

Well, its getting to the point where they are saying "Well, here's a picture of the same part of Mars..." I don't expect them to do daily press briefings for much longer. We'll be better served by reading their web sites and blogs.

Not Sol 3 related - but it's a graphic image pulled out by Adobe Soundbooth of the Melacom recording from MEX If I had to guess, the bright part that finished at the bottom of the 'trough' would be the plasma 'blackout' period and the kink on the 'up' slope the 'chute deployment or the switch from 8k to 32k. The wider, brighter area covering most of the signal period, perhaps noise from HRSC or Spicam.

Doug

It is probably the "You mean, we have to report from Tucson?" syndrome.

Actually, a lot of the press from JPL were headed out to Tucson. They may just have run out of questions. Most of them are now heading on to Florida to cover Shuttle launch, I think.

--Emily

heh,.. when I played the file, my audio player's default visualisation module kicked in and produced this (it didn't fit onto one screen's width so I've crudely pasted chunks from two screenshots together to get the whole thing.) As scientific as a newpaper horoscope, of course but I notice the same harmonics (if that's what they are) show up in both visualisations though.

Click to view attachment

EDIT: Hmmm, Doug's shot shows a curve after the "bounce", whilst mine shows a straight line. Logarithmic vs. linear vertical scale perhaps? Any mathematicians in the house?

It looks as though you and Doug have discovered a new subatomic particle.

A Phoenon?

Doug discovered it first... I suppose that makes it Doug's Boson!!

*rimshot*

FX: *tumbleweed*, silence broken only by the sound of the wind whistling across the desolate Vastitas plain, the weather tell-tale slaps forlornly against the met mast...

A few media outlets (worst of all, DrudgeReport) overhyped the mission with headlines like "Life on Mars?" which would naturally give the readership a hangover when they find out: that absolutely no evidence of any kind has yet been collected by the mission; that the instruments on the mission are not even capable of detecting life when they do start operating.

For those people who read headlines alone, the discovery of life on Mars is already ancient history, even though it never happened. But it will continue to "happen" every few years.

I'm just curious, and horribly addicted: Which site get the images posted first? University of Arizona or NASA?

Must.....see....more.....pix.....

University of Arizona seems to post the images as they are received on Earth, nearly real time. Definitely first.

Emily, the workspace mosaic you said you couldn't on your blog, is it this one: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=529&cID=8

Thanks. I was looking at the NASA site for images and it wasn't there. How did you find it? I don't see it in any of the various galleries on the Phoenix site either...

--Emily

I just used the Phoenix website's gallery page. The image is thumbnailed there, but it doesn't show the entire mosaic in the thumbnail, so it is difficult to spot.

At today's press conference, both the lack of questions and the lack of reporters was hughly dissapointing.

To bad we can't call in. I could think of several as I'm sure others could as well

A missed opportunity for all.

ken

Hi!

Have you seen this news?
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMAWQ1YUFF_index_0.html

I don´t understand how the sound of Phoenix can be so strange, they seem to be "computer sounds"...

Is that a "real sound" that we would listen if we were flying next to Phoenix?

Cheers!

If you want to post a few here, go ahead and I'll ask a couple tomorrow (I didn't know the call-in number today but I do now). However, I probably won't get away with asking more than 2 or 3 questions, so I'll have to pick and choose if a lot are posted.

--Emily

Question 1: "Do you have a workaround for the malfunctioning arm?"

Follow-up: "Do you expect the failure rate to be similar to that of the Mars rovers?"

.....

Question 2: "Is this the coldest place on Mars?"

Follow-up: "Is it the flattest?"

.....

(Removes mainstream-media hat....)

Okay, thanks! Here's a few; pick any you want or leave them as you will, Emily:

1. What is the reason for the "National Park" exclusion areas? Does this mean that they will remain completely undisturbed, and if so, why? (I only got to catch maybe the last 5 min of the presser, so the reference was a bit confusing).

2. How will the arm's biobarrier be prevented from potentially interfering with the arm's function over the course of the mission?

3. Is there a long-term site imagery plan in place aside from detailed mapping of the immediate area? There are some intriguing features on the horizon that might be worth further examination within the limits of SSI.

4. Are there any preliminary guesses about the weathered "sandstone" look & composition of some of the nearby rocks?

5. Based on previous MER EDL experience and now the Phoenix backshell & heatshield impacts imaged by MRO, in addition to the thruster erosion around Phoenix itself, it seems that the windborne dust coating of the planet is almost uniformly lighter optically than the underlying soil. Why?

Guess that's enough!

Any idea if they intend - or are able - to use the Robotic Arm Camera to turn towards the spacecraft and do a self portrait mosaic? The lens can focus 11mm to infinity so focus isn't an issue. It would be great to see the spacecraft sitting on the surface. A good tourist shot if you will. Also, how about the unused MARDI camera? (Taking a shot at point blank to see what's under the spacecraft.)

I think MARDI is still very much an open issue, but maybe things might change, It was disabled due to potential EDL GNC interference, but possibly after they get comfortable running the spacecraft on the surface the risks of turning it on might be less severe...my opinion & hope, anyhow.

I like nprev's question on any preliminary guesses about the weathered "sandstone" look & composition of some of the nearby rocks. If indeed they are sandstone what is the best guess on their provenance.

New pictures are coming in now. The arm has moved.

Anyone plan record the press conference?

The bug was with reading IMU data and MARDI data simultaneously. Now that the IMUs are turned off and unused, there's no risk in operating MARDI. The spacecraft guidance system isn't very challenged just sitting on the ground.

But I think it's unlikely this will happen until all other mission objectives are met, if then. It could take a nice image of the stuff underneath the rover, and I'm not sure the RAC can see that area (MARDI is on the other side of the met mast.)

Disclaimer: this post is based on public information. Any opinions are my own.

To my knowledge, the next press conference is at 2 PM EDT? Previous press conferences can be found at space-multimedia.

The MARDI system has a microphone too. It would be a great PR tool to record some Martian sounds with the sound of a moving arm in the back/foreground.

This was mentioned in one of the press conferences (yesterdays I think) and the answer was that it was possible but they would concentrate on primary mission objectives first.

And I agree with them, a lot of complicated things to do first!

BTW, the black and white panorama is done, I think.

full pano

and the non-fisheye panaorama...

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_776.jpg

Quite enjoying the rawness of these new images! Makes me feel like I'm in command with everyone else trying to figure everything out.

Anyway, pull out your 3D glasses and enjoy this stereo image I chopped together. Brought back many memories. http://i30.tinypic.com/102pb35.jpg

Any idea where I can find 3D glasses with the correct colours? I have red and blue glasses and blue and yellow/brown, but not red and green.

Sadly, as I suspected, Heimdal is obscured by a rise in the plains east of the lander. Unless the crater's hazed out by the distance, as Goldstone is in some VL-2 pans.

But the pedestal crater to the WNW is visible!

Me, I'm a horizon kind of guy.

-Tim.

I've been wondering about that.

Are they going to vaporize all the H2O they collect to analyze it for organic compounds?

If I ran the zoo, I would definitely take a bit of ice, at least once, gently warm it to 5 degrees C or so, and turn the microscope loose on the liquid results. Long shot? Sure, but worth trying. Does anyone know these sorts of details about the science plan? and about what exactly the microsope is intended to examine? Mineral/crystal/etc. structures and (conceivably) oven-safe fossils only??

Ok, this is cool. I took the liberty of flipping the second half upside down to give a sense of continuity to the signal after it receded from the Mars Express. It's interesting to see the change in signal when Phoenix hit the atmosphere.

No. It's just the Doppler shift in radio waves between Phoenix and Mars Express. It would have been clearer if they had said "sounds of Phoenix's radio transmission" rather than "sounds of Phoenix".

I got mine from work...

Not sure whether mine are red/blue or red/green, but these work just fine for that anaglyph:

http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/IMG_0231.JPG

These birds eye views really bring out the polygons:
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_816.jpg
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_815.jpg

Isn't that Heimdal at 130 degrees?

The polygons are gorgeous, and are probably the largest observable geological structures in this area.

I think that image is actually red/cyan. Your red/blue glasses should work reasonably well with those, as would red/green. I occasionally suffer from bouts of 3D blindness, but there seemed to be little 3D relief in that particular pair of images.

Some more questions for Emily (or anyone who can answer them here).

Exactly how icy does this area get during the winter? Does the area actually see a physical accumulation of CO2 ice on the surface and if so how deep does it get?

How much Daily (Solly?) power were the solar panels expected to generate on Sol 0 and what is the expected amount of power they will generate at the end of the primary mission?

What are the most temperature sensitive vital components of the lander? Once the onset of autumn and winter begin to bite and temperatures drop which systems are believed to be the ones that will force the mission to end?

Are the resting locations of the heatshield and backshell\parachute debris closer to the lander than expected?

Nice new pics.

For those of you waiting for me to repost filename corrected and zipped versions. My renaming program choked this morning trying to get it done for you before work, I'll try and sort the problem this evening (UK time)

EDIT: Now updated - see my sig

"Me, I'm a horizon kind of guy."

Yes, Tim, horizons are where it's at!

An exaggerated relief view of this horizon would be interesting - I'm travelling, or I'd do it.

Phil

Hey Zeehond, I could have made it wrong, but they had stereo images plus a green filter too, so I added it. Quasi-color stereo image, like in those old Viking books I used to read when I was a kid. I was the only kid in our small town library to ever check them out. Maybe I'm just able to see into these sorts of images but it works just fine with me with blue/red lenses.

Coordinated view of my pseudocolor HiRISE image and the most recent Phoenix lander surface panorama (lg_804.jpg):

Click to view attachment

Bluer in the false color image is darker colored in the original image (polygon bordersr and exposed rocks).

-Mike

[EDIT: "Sleepy Hollow" is the darker blue zone very close to the lander at 1 o'clock in the pseudocolorized image.]

Moving...

Good thing you dont run the zoo.

If you warmed the ice to 5 deg C it would boil away quickly. Even exposed ice may sublime away in minutes-hours.

The ovens in TEGA are about 3mm in dia (see http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rlorenz/TEGA.pdf )
so you can't get a microscope (which is an entirely different instrument elsewhere on the lander) into them
(the point is after all to seal the oven (and once you seal each one, you cant unseal it)
so you can look for water vapor, organics etc that are evolved. NB
big difference between TEGA on MPL and TEGA-II on PHX is that while the TA ovens are the same, the EGA
is very different - an absorption spectrometer for CO2 and H2O on TEGA-1, but a mass spec for TEGA-II that
might also detect organics.

But I dont think soil sampling is planned for a few sols yet.

Still another day of arm unstow yet.