NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander used its Robotic Arm during the mission's 15th
Martian day since landing (June 9, 2008) to test a "sprinkle" method for
delivering small samples of soil to instruments on the lander deck.
This sequence of four images from the spacecraft's Surface Stereo Imager
covers a period of 20 minutes from beginning to end of the activity.
In the single delivery of a soil sample to a Phoenix instrument prior to
this test, the arm brought the scooped up soil over the instrument's
opened door and turned over the scoop to release the soil. The sprinkle
technique, by contrast, holds the scoop at a steady angle and vibrates the
scoop by running the motorized rasp located beneath the scoop. This gently
jostles some material out of the scoop to the target below.
For this test, the target was near the upper end the cover of the
Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer instrument suite,
or MECA. The cover is 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) across. The scoop is
about 8.5 centimeters (3.3 inches) across.
Based on the test's success in delivering a small quantity and fine-size
particles, the Phoenix team plans to use the sprinkle method for
delivering samples to MECA and to the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or
TEGA. The next planned delivery is to MECA's Optical Microscope, via the
port in the MECA cover visible at the bottom of these images.
The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf
of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Denver.
