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Lectures slated for in April will preview the Phoenix Mission landing in May.

By Lori Stiles, University Communications
March 27, 2008

The University of Arizona is only weeks away from leading scientific exploration on the surface of another planet.

After NASA lands the Phoenix Mission spacecraft on the northern plains of Mars on May 25, an international team of scientists led by the UA's Peter Smith will run the months-long robotic mission from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory's Phoenix Science Operations Center in Tucson.

The UA is the first public university to lead a mission to Mars.

The UA's Biosphere 2 will mark this major moment in Mars exploration and UA history with a special series of four lectures by key players in the Phoenix Mars Mission. The B2 Institute, which coordinates Biosphere 2 programs that stimulate visionary, interdisciplinary thinking on global-scale environmental problems, has organized the series, called "MARS!"

Lectures will be at 11 a.m. each Saturday in April in the Biosphere 2 Theater. Admission is free, but does not include admission to tours of Biosphere 2. The lectures are:

• April 5, "Mars! Arizona in Space" – Regents' Professor Michael Drake, head of the department of planetary sciences and director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

The UA is a world leader in space-borne exploration of the solar system. The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, or LPL, was founded in 1960 with scientists who mapped and photographed the moon in preparation for the Apollo-era moon landings, the nation's earliest venture into space. LPL scientists have helped lead or support nearly all U.S. planetary missions since. LPL students have become, and will become, leaders in space exploration because of the training they get here. For the past five years, the State of Arizona has been getting a 10-to-1 return on funds the state has appropriated to the LPL, Drake said, and much of that money is spent in Arizona.

• April 12, "Mars! Trials and Tribulations on Mars: Discovery of Buried Ice Leads to the Phoenix Mission" – Professor William Boynton, department of planetary sciences and LPL

Mars exploration is risky. It has its highs and lows – mission failures along with successes. Mars exploration was at a lull in 2000, after a spacecraft was lost when landing near Mars' south pole in December 1999.

However, Boynton leads the Gamma Ray Spectrometer experiment on Mars Odyssey, and when his science instrument discovered significant amounts of water ice near Mars' north pole in February 2001, and near Mars' south pole in March 2002, the discoveries kindled new fervor for Mars science.

It also kindled the Phoenix Mars Mission. Boynton leads the Phoenix Mission's Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer experiment, called TEGA, that will heat samples of Mars in eight tiny ovens so researchers can analyze what, exactly, the planet is made of.

• April 19, "Mars! The Phoenix Rises Again" – Peter Smith, LPL senior research scientist and Phoenix Mars Mission principal investigator

Smith is the scientist who proposed the Phoenix Mission, which was selected in a stiff competition to be NASA's first Scout Mission to Mars. Smith named the Phoenix Mission for the mythological bird that rises from the ashes of its predecessor because his mission is the progeny of two earlier U.S. Mars missions, Mars Polar Lander, the spacecraft that was lost on landing in 1999, and the 2001 Mars Surveyor, which was canceled.

After a hard-surface landing on May 25, the Phoenix spacecraft will deploy a long robotic arm to dig into arctic terrain in a search for clues on the history of water and a search for environment habitable for life. The Phoenix lander will probe farther north than any previous mission to Mars.

A 1977 UA graduate in optical sciences, Smith built or helped build cameras that have taken, and are taking, some of the most extraordinary views in the solar system. On July 4, 1997, Smith's Imager for Mars Pathfinder took the first images from the Martian surface since the two 1970s Viking lander missions.

Smith had cameras on the Mars Polar Lander lost in 1999 and is a member of the science team for the Mars Exploration Rovers that have been wheeling around on the red planet since January 2004. He also helped manage construction for the HiRISE camera, a stunningly successful experiment headed by LPL's Alfred McEwen that is flying on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

• April 26, "Mars! Spying on Mars from Orbit with HiRISE” – Professor Alfred McEwen, department of planetary sciences and LPL

McEwen is principal investigator of the High Resolution Imaging Experiment, or HiRISE, on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The HiRISE camera is the most powerful camera ever to orbit another planet.

It has been taking huge and stunning color, black-and-white and stereo images since beginning its science mission in November 2006. The remarkable camera takes images of 3.5-mile-wide swaths as the orbiter flies at about 7,800 mph between about 160 and 200 miles above the planet surface. By last December, the HiRISE team had released a record-breaking quarter of a million image products totaling six terabytes of data. HiRISE will have taken more than 200 images of possible Phoenix spacecraft landing sites by the time Phoenix lands in a few weeks.

The B2 Institute was founded in July 2007, when the UA took over the management of Biosphere 2.  Its mission is "to address scientific Grand Challenges whose solutions require the combined expertise of a broad range of scientific fields and diverse interdisciplinary talents," B2 Institute Director Pierre Meystre said. As part of its mission, the B2 Institute is helping the state of Arizona address its emerging challenges of extreme growth and fragile environment, Meystre said.

The B2 Institute initiates, hosts, and sponsors programs on the Biosphere 2 campus on themes ranging from sustainable energy sources to global climate change, from water management to astrobiology, and from physics research on string theory to K-12 science education.

B2 Institute also hosts outreach activities that complement the tours of Biosphere 2, including "Science Saturdays," special themed series such as the MARS! lectures, teacher education days, artist- and journalist-in-residence programs, art exhibits and more.
 
Biosphere 2 offers a new membership program. Affordable annual memberships are designed to encourage repeat visits and engage Biosphere 2 members in unique research conducted at Biosphere 2 by UA faculty, students and staff.