Science Cafe – Peter Smith Phoenix Mars Mission Update
Peter Smith, Principal Investigator for the Phoenix Mars Mission presented a short talk on Tuesday, May 5, entitled, “Journey of the Phoenix.” He shared images taken by the Phoenix Mars Lander, which touched down in the Martian arctic on May 25, 2008, and his thoughts about finding life outside of Earth.
What did the Phoenix Mars Lander find on Mars? Did we find evidence of water? Did Mars support life sometime in its history? Peter Smith revealed some of the initial scientific findings from the Phoenix mission and the prospects for finding life on the Red Planet.
Finding life in the universe seemed unimaginable just a few years ago, but according to a prediction from Peter Smith, we’ll find life outside of Earth in the next 10 years. Although it may not be the type of life depicted in science fiction stories, it will be life nevertheless. Peter Smith thinks we’ll find microscopic organisms on Mars, “I think it’s coming, I really do,” Smith noted. “At some point, we’ll turn over a rock, and by gosh there it is.”
Launched in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission was the first in NASA’s Scout Program and was designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian Arctic’s ice-rich soil. The mission was a collaboration of numerous agencies and academic institutions, including the University of Arizona’s Science Operations Center, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. International contributions are from the Canadian Space Agency and the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
For the next five months, after a spectacular landing on the Red Planet, the stationary probe with its robotic arm, a weather station, a series of ovens, a microscope, and cameras, was controlled by Peter Smith and his crew from the University of Arizona’s Science Operations Center. The mission focused on digging and analyzing soil samples from an area about the size of a couch on the very cold, dry, volcanic planet where, according to Smith, there has been no rain for at least 100,000 years.
The success of the Phoenix Mars mission was just one more significant milestone in Peter Smith’s career. He is a pioneer and veteran of the United States space program and a member of UA’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory since 1978. Smith has participated in many of the seminal space missions that have explored the solar system. In 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder Mission relayed images of the Red Planet captured by Smith’s camera on board the Sojourner Rover. He spent nearly two years managing the building of the 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera for which the UA’s Alfred McEwen is the principal investigator. Smith also has experienced his share of disappointment, which is inherent in leading complicated space missions. In 1999, the Mars Polar Lander mission crashed on the Martian surface. That failure prompted the cancellation of the 2001 Mars Surveyor Program mission. Both projects included UA cameras.
Phoenix Surface Ops Facts
Microsoft Word: phoenix-fast-facts-5-05-09
PDF: phoenix-fast-facts-5-05-09
Phoenix Mars Mission Overview
Website
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/
