The robotic arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander slid a rock out of the way
during the mission's 117th Martian day (Sept. 22, 2008) to gain access to
soil that had been underneath the rock.The lander's Surface Stereo Imager
took the two images for this stereo view later the same day, showing the
rock, called "Headless," after the arm pushed it about 40 centimeters (16
inches) from its previous location.
"The rock ended up exactly where we intended it to," said Matt Robinson of
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, robotic arm flight software lead for the
Phoenix team.
The arm had enlarged the trench near Headless two days earlier in
preparation for sliding the rock into the trench. The trench was dug to
about 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) deep. The ground surface between the
rock's prior position and the lip of the trench had a slope of about 3
degrees downward toward the trench. Headless is about the size and shape
of a VHS videotape.
The Phoenix science team sought to move the rock in order to study the
soil and the depth to subsurface ice underneath where the rock had been.
This image was taken at about 12:30 p.m., local solar time on Mars. The
view is to the north northeast of the lander.
The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf
of NASA. Project management of the mission is by JPL, Pasadena, Calif.
Spacecraft development was by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.
