Phoenix Mars Lander set to launch early Saturday

August 03, 2007 (Computerworld) -- In December 1999, NASA's long-awaited Mars Polar Lander space mission came to an abrupt and disappointing end when the spacecraft apparently smashed into the surface of the planet as it attempted to touch down. It was never heard from again.

Saturday morning, however, some of the experiments that would have been performed on that mission eight years ago, plus new exploratory projects, will be launched to Mars on the Phoenix Mars Lander. The spacecraft is expected to land on the planet's surface 122 million miles away on May 25.

Phoenix is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., atop a 13-story-tall Delta II launch vehicle at 5:26 a.m. EDT tomorrow.

Chris Lewicki, the Phoenix flight systems engineer for the mission, called the package of experiments on the Phoenix Lander "a kind of science chemistry lab for soil analysis." One of the main goals of the mission is to dig deeply into the Martian soil to find buried ice that will provide more information about the presence of water on the planet.

"Phoenix is actually going where the water is," on the planet's north pole, where the lander will have about 90 days to conduct experiments before the subfreezing cold of the Mars winter begins and ultimately disables the lander's power generation and heating systems, Lewicki said.

Scientists have learned through images taken using special gamma ray spectrometers from an earlier Odyssey orbiter mission that there is an abundance of frozen hydrogen -- a critical ingredient of water -- under the soil in the area where Phoenix is scheduled to land.

Those high levels of frozen hydrogen, seen in the gamma ray images, are apparently deep enough under the soil that they have not melted or evaporated, Lewicki said. Mars has no liquid water on its surface, and scientists have been debating for years whether there is frozen water on the planet.

The experiments will be conducted using a larger and more powerful robotic arm and an onboard chemistry lab equipped with several high-temperature ovens, an assortment of small beakers and other specialized equipment. The experiments are designed to help scientists learn more about how long hydrogen has been present on the planet, as well as what other trace elements and frozen gases might be trapped in it.

Soil and other materials scooped up by the robotic arm can be mixed with water and other substances, then can be heated and stirred to learn more about their makeup and conditions. An optical microscope and a special camera will be used to examine the samples more closely.

A meteorological experiment package from the Canadian Space Agency will also be on board to monitor the atmosphere, said Lewicki, who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

While this is an essential mission to prove there is water, once it is done, I still advocate conducting a “brute force” mission to the Moon as a test, then if successful on to Mars:

Instead of making incremental changes to the Mars rovers, to send more and more rovers to Mars to find much the same thing, the entire emphasis on the space program to both the Moon and Mars missions should concentrate at first, not on exploration, but on “infrastructure”, which in the long run will significantly increase the amount of exploration that can be done.

By this, I mean a mission to create a permanent foundation on both the Moon and Mars that, with every subsequent mission, will be improved upon.

Such a foundation should use large and powerful construction robots, probably built by Caterpillar, powered by a small nuclear reactor, to dig tunnels suitable for human use.

Horizontal rock tunnels with pressure doors would radically increase the amount of time all subsequent missions could be on the Moon or Mars. Instead of having to ship habitats with the astronauts back and forth every time, for brief stays, they can take far more oxygen, supplies, equipment, experiments, and everything else they need.

Rock tunnels would protect them from vacuum, cosmic and enhanced radiation, extremes of heat and cold, extremely abrasive dust, and also give them a LOT more space in which to work and live.

And using construction robots would save vast amounts of time, in that they could work continuously for years without there having to be humans present. The humans would just need to bring replacement parts for things like drill bits. And no need for the robots to stop working once humans have arrived or left again. They could just keep improving on the habitat.

Since such robots would be on a one way mission, even their landing craft could be cannibalized for things such as pressure doors, reinforcing rod and flooring. And once they had completed the basic tunnel, they could prospect for and mine water ice, both for water and to generate gas they could use to test the tunnel for pressure leaks. Finally, the robots could be reprogrammed and maybe retooled by the astronauts for new labors.

The short and long term advantages of doing it this way are profound, compared to endless repeats of two week long missions of the Apollo type, or endless variations of Mars rovers be-bopping around taking pictures of rocks.

The robot ships, being very large and heavy, would most likely be made in 100 ton modules, each of which could be sent into orbit on a heavy lift rocket, then assembled in orbit before going on their main mission.

Though the actual creation of this would involve lots of new design and invention, the concept itself could be done with the technologies we have already. All it really takes is to realize that with a big expenditure up front, it will save huge amounts of money and time later.

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