[BenLurkin]

Mars Lander Ping

[chasio649]

Call Roto-Rooter

[Army Air Corps]

It was Marvin the Martian, again.

[LucyT]

[El Sordo]

Hate it when that happens.

[Grizzled Bear]

TEGA's screen is designed to let through particles up to 0.04 inch (1 millimeter) across while keeping out larger particles, in order to prevent clogging a funnel pathway to a tiny oven inside.

Didn't any of the team members consider this possibility when they planned the mission?

Unrelated - why am I getting a mental image of an "EZ Bake Oven?"

[17th Miss Regt]

Independent Validation & Verification of the design and sioftware might have found this glitch before the lander was built.

[dr_lew]

One thing I’ve noticed is the change in language about the presumed ice layer. Initially they thought they were looking at ice below the lander, but when they scraped at it and had white flecks come up, suddenly they called it “ice or salt”, and slowly “salt” and “salts” creeped into the picture. So what I’m thinking is that THERE IS NO ICE, and that THEY WERE ALL WRONG. Well, it will be interesting. Maybe it is ice. How would I know.

[Cementjungle]

Some jerk on Mars threw his used bubblegum on the ground instead of properly disposing it.

[MARTIAL MONK]

"I think it's the cloddiness of the soil and not having enough fine granular material,"

Ah wisht ah was a rocket scientist.

[trumandogz]

this guy is going to have one long trip for his next repair job.

[etcetera]

The lump of soil is actually a Martian life-form resisting being baked in an oven.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Does Mars have actual soil, or is it just regolith, like on the moon?

[AmericaUnited]

They need to have the robot arm smack on the side a few times.

[twntaipan]

I have images of shrink wrap left on the opening of the screen to keep out dust (prior to liftoff from Earth). Sort of like the plastic coverings sometimes left on notebook computers during shipping.

[kalee]

ping

[RightWhale]

spaceflightnow.com

An image beamed back to Earth from the Phoenix Mars lander early Saturday shows the platform’s robotic arm has dumped a load of dirt near the opening of a tiny high-temperature oven, but a sensor inside the instrument did not detect any soil traveling through the narrow portal.

---

Needs a shake. Maybe they can hit it with the scooper.

[2111USMC]

"I think it's the cloddiness of the soil and not having enough fine granular material,"

So it's the soil's fault.

Okie dokie.

[CapnJack]

Can someone here tell me if this mission was a taxpayer funded operation or a private investment with NASA hired as the project managers?

If it was a private venture ... no problem. But if it was another taxpayer funded boondoggle I can see this almost one billion dollar investment far better spent on something like the Veterans Administration for our wounded troops.

Scooping dirt with a fancy erector set ain't my idea of money well spent ... especially tax payer money.