I challenge you not to look at this and make a ping/spring/boing happy sort of a noise.

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_14223.jpg

ping! spring! boing !

A beautiful sight

Hmm, my noise was kind of a combination of a long, drawn out sighing "Phew!" and a fist-clenched celebratory "Yes!! Get IN there!!!"

Oh, right on!!! What a welcome sight. Get it in there, baby, get it done!

"Phew" is the best word, I would say. Now it's time to put some ice in there.

<log off> <looking for a cold drink in the freeze>

Sproing indeed

Great news on the door. Here's hoping that all goes well on the sample delivery. I for one would not like to be the person to enter the "vibrate on" command, then have everyone waiting to see if the short circuit acts up and kills the whole vibrator circuit or the whole instrument.

Left Eye R/B fudged colour. Right Eye Diopter IR/B fudged colour, and a colour anaglyph of the two.

Question from old TEGA thread:

My (non expert) impression is that since the first sample was devoid of volatiles -- CO2 and H2O -- the signals would not be large enough to easily check ratios.

At the sound of your voice Heaven opens its portals to me! Can I help but rejoice...

I was looking for the anaglyph to be very very very sure. I can confirm now : it's open!
Regarding your challenge, my note was... 0

I just caught the news from Emily's blog.....

What a beautiful sight ...... !!!!!!!!

GO PHOENIX... let's sniff some ice!!!!!!!!

It is SO cool to watch these missions progress.....

Craig

Hilarious, climber! That's a good one.

Way to go, Phoenix! It's a beautiful sight, indeed.

Maybe so--here's hoping the recent success with the doors will widen TEGA's perception.

The sound that comes to my mind, courtesy The Doors, is a combination of "break on through to the other side" and "come on baby light my fire"" MP3.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern." -- William Blake

Yea!

It looks like they've successfully uttered the command "Open Sesame".

Previously, they'd been asking HAL to open the pod-bay doors - with predictably little success...

(Could this suggest that this whole side of doors may be operational? If so, second hooray!)

IIRC, I believe the ovens on the ends were expected to be more likely to open fully because of the way the hinge mechanisms work. If that's true then it's more likely to suggest the other three end ovens will open too.

You mean the other two. The first oven opened was an end oven and one of its doors only partially opened, so it looks like we won't know exactly how each door will open until it's opened.

My momma always said, "TEGA is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Now lets hope she finds some shrimp

Could this whole side be opening fully instead of 'only' doors 0 and 3? They think they know which part is the problem but why could that part on this side of TEGA not be manufactured according to specs? I surely hope doors 1 and 2 work as well. Until we try there is no way of knowing. I guess they are first using the end ovens and perhaps try the other onces after that anyway.

Apologies, the wait is too long

Wow, thanks to Emily's Blog we now know more.

The part "not manufactured to a precise enough specification" is the "rail at the bottom". It tends to binds some doors while allowing others to open fine. While that sounds a bit sketchy to me it fuelers my hope that the other side of TEGA will be fine.

More from her blog:


So now we know this is another short. Not good news to hear, but on the positive side according to what Leslie Tamppari told Emily the team looking for a possible sol 60 rasp & deliver. The long wait is finally over, we just have to sit out this weekend.

Thanks Emily for that update!

No. We don't. What Emily reported is what has been discussed previously--the team is worried about a "possible" future short that could threaten all ovens. There is something unknown that caused one short (in TA 4). There are types of shorts that are local to the oven, like that one. As Emily said, there are high side shorts that affect the entire instrument. There is "no way to assess the probability of another short circuit" occurring, so prudence dictates knocking off the highest priority samples first (http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/07_02_pr.php). Once there is another short, it may simply be too late to be prudent.

Misread that. I thought 'possible' meant they were note sure there is one as opposed to some new short occurring.

This does not clear up anything for me. Then again, I did not personally design nor do I operate the instrument so nothing is likely to make sense to me. Just so long as the teams proceed cautiously, which they are, and do their absolute best to get some ice into that oven.

Have to admit though, those open doors sure were a beautiful sight.

Looks like they are finally going for it:


It would be interesting to know more about the plan. Will the oven close immediately when its sensors confirm enough material has entered? If not, how will sublimation be avoided?

"NASA has tentatively scheduled a "mid-course" status report on the Phoenix mission July 31, when results of the latest TEGA run may be announced and new images released. The Phoenix team has asked for an extension of the nominal 92-sol (92 Earth-day) mission, and the outcome of that request may be revealed as well."

more:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/sto...EXCITE07258.xml

I have always been a little in awe of the expertise of the MER and Phoenix teams in trouble shooting and fault rectification at such a huge distance. But for Phoenix, to my mind they have lost the high ground with respect to design and QA and should be indulging in some navel gazing.

First the rail not manufactured to specification jeopardising a proportion of the TEGA capability. OK stuff happens and QA tests get missed, but surely not with an interplanetary lander.

Secondly, a short for oven 4 that is now '"cleared," it can't possibly affect the operation of TEGA in the future'. The cynic in me equates that to a fuse blowing. It can only happen once. But what was the inherent vulnerability that caused it in the first place?

And now a revelation that they have assessed the possibility of another short related failure mode that could have the effect of taking out the entire capability. Possibly the same cause and effect as the oven 4 short. We can only hope the probability of occurrence is low and the ice sample will be successfully tested.

Compliments to the team for identifying the possible failure mode. But that does beg the question as to why this wasn't identified before the mission. Easy to be wise in retrospect, but there does seem to have been a breakdown in their processes.

Sol 60 Raw Images

This looks like post-delivery, 0749 local time. There's a little soil on the adjacent TEGA door.

They certainly got some serious rasping done:
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_16036.jpg

Here is a before and after gif.

Awesome! All that's missing is this. (4 MB, but worth it )

Is it just me, or did they completely miss the oven? There's no obvious sign of sample on the mesh screen, just on the adjacent closed doors.

I don't think they missed it. There's some material visible on the bottom edge of the mesh as well. The thing is this was nowhere near as much material as the first TEGA delivery so I'm not completely surprised nothing is seen on the mesh. Not completely, but still somewhat surprised not a single particle was stuck at the mesh...

Looking at the early and late post dump shots htere doesn't seem to be much subliming although it is hard to see as the lighting is different between the 0740ish shot and the 1300ish shot

I venture they got an oven-full signal. Maybe.

There is a TEGA post-delivery image that shows soil on the adjacent door, at 0749:
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...019&cID=179

There is an image of soil remaining in the scoop, at 0755, after the above:
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...109&cID=179

I think it's likely that the programmed sequence was to sprinkle until oven-full was detected. That would leave some soil in the scoop. (But, I suppose it's possible that they sprinkled, imaged, sprinkled, imaged without regard to stopping upon oven-full, and that might lead to the same pictures.)

Could be a good sign. The sample went straight through the mesh?

I take it back - there are traces along the lower part of the right-hand door's hinge line, but much clearer dustings on the bottom part of the left-hand door - they're only clear in the RAC images I think.

Still... I would welcome a confirmation of "oven full" from one of our members-in-the-know.
Howzaboutit, guys? Can I open this champagne?

Yeah, what's the scoop?

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Not enough material in the oven :-(
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/07_26_pr.php

Well, there is also some good news in there :

I wonder if it sublimated between rasp/scoop and drop, or if they just didn't get enough out of the rasping?

-the other Doug

Neither -- "much of the soil remained lodged in the robotic arm's scoop after the attempt to deliver the sample to the TEGA. "

See http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/data/pho...9_16B80MDM1.jpg, which was taken at 07:55, which was after the dumping (which happened some time between 07:33 and 07:49).

--Emily

As the press release says "the robotic arm collected a more than adequate amount of icy soil", but most of it stuck to the back of the scoop.

Sounds like a pretty easy problem to fix, but then this is Mars.

Mars has never given up any of its secrets without a fight. Looks like this time is no different.

Got to feel sorry for all the TEGA team; they're obviously working unbelievably hard on this, and Mars just keeps laughing and kicking dirt in their faces. They must be feeling a combination of frustrated/angry/rotten right now.

If any of you are reading this, keep going guys, we're behind you and thinking of you.

Here's an RAC image of the sample before the sprinkle/dump, for comparison:

RGB from red image acquired at 07:29 and blue taken at 07:30

We are reading. Thanks for your kind words.

Click to view attachment

I can't stand it.

Nothing comes easy....

Trying to operate a delicate sample delivery remotely... frankly I am amazed at the progress made so far....
All you folks on the Phoenix team have my utmost admiration.

Wondering if the sample material cold welded to the scoop due to the early morning temps? I look at that instrument deck
and cannot imagine how cold all the outer surfaces must be....

Craig