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Phoenix Lander Weathers Dust Storm

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This is an image of Mars taken from orbit by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Mars Color Imager (MARCI). The red planet's polar ice-cap is in the middle of the image, which shows a 37,000 square-kilometer, or 14,000 square-mile, dust storm that moved counter-clockwise through the Phoenix landing site on Oct 11, 2008, or Sol 135 of the mission. Viewing this image as if it were the face of a clock, Phoenix is a shown as a small white dot, located at about 10 a.m. The storm, which had already passed over the landing site earlier in the day, is located at about 9:30 a.m. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

The spacecraft on Mars is back at work after a slight 'brown-out.'

By University Communications October 15, 2008

The Phoenix Lander successfully weathered a regional dust storm that temporarily reduced its solar power over the weekend, and the mission team is back investigating the Red Planet's northern plains.

The increasing opacity in the atmosphere from the storm decreased the power reaching the Phoenix's solar arrays. So Phoenix scientists and engineers curtailed such lander activities as retrieving data from its onboard science laboratories on Oct. 11 and 12, or Martian sols 135 and 136.

The University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory leads science operations for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander.

The 37,000-square-kilometer, or about 14,000-square-mile, storm moved west to east. It had weakened considerably by the time it reached the lander on Saturday, Oct. 11. This tamer storm put the spacecraft in a better-than-expected power situation, Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, the lead scientist for Phoenix's Robotic Arm, said.

The lander is now busy meting out its power to analyze soil samples, collect atmospheric data and conduct other activities before fall and winter stop Phoenix cold.

"Energy is becoming an issue, so we have to carefully budget our activities," Arvidson said.

The Phoenix team tracked the dust storm last week through images gleaned from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Mars Color Imager. The imager's team estimated that after the dust storm passed through Phoenix's landing site on Saturday, the dust would gradually decrease this week.

This dust storm is a harbinger of more wintry and volatile weather to come. As Martian late summer turns into fall, the Phoenix team anticipates more dust storms, frost in trenches and water-ice clouds. They look forward to collecting data and documenting this "most interesting season," Arvidson said.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith at the UA with project management at the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and development partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Et Cetera