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The Planetary Society Weblog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Jul. 29, 2008 | 11:39 PDT | 18:39 UTC
A launch slip for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (not their fault)
Bruce Betts sent me some notes he took when he attended the NLSI Lunar Science Conference held at NASA's Ames Research Center last week. Included in his notes was the news (reported already elsewhere) that the launch of Lunar Reconnaissance... More»
Jul. 28, 2008 | 11:01 PDT | 18:01 UTC
What's up in the solar system for the week of July 28
Let's check in on the twenty spacecraft exploring the solar system. First up: I was expecting this morning to find some images from Mars Express' closest-ever encounter with Phobos, but so far there's nothing new on the ESA website. I'll keep... More»
Jul. 26, 2008 | 15:37 PDT | 22:37 UTC
Phoenix sol 60: not enough sample to TEGA
Well, according to a release just posted on the Phoenix website, despite the success of the rasping efforts, not enough sample got in to the TEGA instrument for it to shut the doors over the sample. This time the problem was not with TEGA. The... More»
Jul. 26, 2008 | 14:29 PDT | 21:29 UTC
Phoenix Sol 60 rasping and dumping successful -- but we don't yet know if it got inside TEGA
EDIT: Now we know that there wasn't enough sample delivered to TEGA -- see the next post.Lots of pictures have come down from Mars this morning showing that many of the steps required to get that all-important ice-rich soil sample to TEGA seemed to... More»
Jul. 25, 2008 | 21:14 PDT | Jul. 26 04:14 UTC
Earth to Phoenix: You are "go" to grab an ice sample for TEGA
The commands have now been sent to Phoenix for it to spend the early hours of sol 60 rasping into Snow White, getting that ice sample into the scoop, and dumping it on to TEGA, all in a short enough amount of time to prevent any ice from sublimating... More»
Jul. 25, 2008 | 11:09 PDT | 18:09 UTC
Make your mark on the map
A year ago today I added a "ClustrMap" to the homepage of this weblog. A ClustrMap is essentially a glorified hit counter. In addition to recording that my homepage has gotten a hit, it notes the location of the IP address from which my page was... More»
Jul. 24, 2008 | 14:00 PDT | 21:00 UTC
Phoenix sol 58 update: rasping and scraping in Wonderland
Today I caught up with Leslie Tamppari, Phoenix project scientist, to get the latest from Mars' north pole. What I was most concerned about was trying to understand the chronology and rationale of all the work they've been doing at their trench... More»
Jul. 24, 2008 | 11:28 PDT | 18:28 UTC
Midnight Sun on Mars
This image is amazing. It is actually many images of the Sun, shot near midnight as Phoenix gazes off toward Mars' north pole. My congratulations to the Phoenix team for imagining it and capturing it, from a spacecraft built well enough to operate... More»
Jul. 23, 2008 | 16:01 PDT | 23:01 UTC
How are we coming on Phoenix mission success?
So we're approaching the two-thirds mark on the mission, and some of you readers out there are getting a little antsy about what Phoenix has accomplished to date. The issues with TEGA have certainly slowed down the plans to examine soil samples. ... More»
Jul. 23, 2008 | 13:55 PDT | 20:55 UTC
More information on the Mars Express Phobos flyby today (no pictures yet)
I've communicated further with Agustin Chicarro about the Mars Express flyby of Phobos today. It seems Mars Express does not communicate with Earth again until Friday, meaning that the images likely will not be released until at least... More»
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