Everyone celebrate! TEGA Oven 0 doors opened perfectly on sol 53

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2008/07/19 08:39 CDT

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Hip hip hooray! At last one set of doors on the TEGA instrument has opened correctly. This image just came down from sol 53, documenting the successful attempt to open the doors over TEGA oven 0:

NASA / JPL / UA / Texas A & M

TEGA on sol 53, with Oven 0 doors open

On sol 53 at 13:58 local solar time, the shutters on TEGA's Oven 0 stand open fully -- the first set of doors on TEGA to open properly. The oven should now be ready to accept a sample of ice-rich soil from the Snow White trench.

You can clearly see the fine mesh covering the oven. Now TEGA is ready for a sample of ice-rich soil -- I'm sure we'll see the delivery within a couple of sols. What a relief! Congratulations to the Phoenix team!