Studies of the surface and atmosphere of Mars from NASA' s Phoenix Lander

美国宇航局凤凰着陆器对火星表面和大气的研究

• 批准号: PP/D002354/1
• 负责人: William Pike
• 金额: $ 32.65万
• 依托单位: Imperial College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2006 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=PP%2FD002354%2F1
• 关键词: Studies; surface; atmosphere; Mars; NASA

This work will be part of NASA's Phoenix Lander Mission, which will send a spacecraft to lands Mars in May 2008 and take a close-up look of the Martian northern polar region. Large amounts ice lie just below the surface there. A robotic arm will dig into the ground, looking for clues about where the ice came from and whether microbes might have lived in Mars' early history. Our contribution to the mission will help understand Mars in three ways. Firstly, we will ensure that microscopes take the best possible pictures of the soil and ice in the Martian arctic. We will examine those pictures to determine whether the soil was once deposited from sediments in a lake or sea, or carried there by the wind, or came directly from the erosion and break down of volcanic lava. Secondly, when the Phoenix spacecraft falls to the surface of Mars from space it gets slowed down by friction with the air and decelerates. The amount that the lander decelerates depends on the air pressure and temperature. We will use the measured deceleration of the Phoenix lander to calculate how the air pressure and temperature changes with height. This can tell us information about the climate, for example, whether there were clouds present during landing or whether the air was dry with a lot of dust. Thirdly, the Phoenix lander has an experiment where soil is scooped up by the robotic arm and mixed with water. Salts in the soil will dissolve in the water and probes in the solution will measure the type of salts, for example whether sodium chloride is present, the salt people use for food. We hope to find out whether the salts on Mars were left behind when a big sea dried up or whether they come from the chemical reaction of volcanic gases with the soil. The microscopy station on Phoenix, that forms a large chunk of our research, consists of a conventional optical microscope and a very-high-resolution microscope called an atomic-force microscope, or AFM. This microscopy station was originally built by Dr Tom Pike while working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Although the microscopy station was completed, the lander that would have carried the microscopy station to the equator of Mars in 2001 was cancelled. However, it will now fly to the Martian arctic in 2007. The different conditions of the Martian artic mean the microscopy station will have to be operated in different ways to its original design. This work will put a copy of the microscopy station into a simulation chamber. Various ice and soil samples will be dropped from a copy of the robot-arm scoop into the station, and microscope images taken with the optical microscope and AFM. At first there will need to be some human intervention to ensure that good images are taken, but as experience with the station is built up more and more of the operations will be performed automatically through computer control. Eventually the microscopy station will be able to take good images by itself, as it will have to on Mars. These methods for automatic operation, or algorithms, will be built into the computer code used on the Phoenix mission to control the microscopy station. The samples will be carried to the microscopes on specially selected holders. Using techniques similar to those used to make silicon chips, it will be possible to cut some silicon so as to best make holders for the small ice and soil particles for microscope imaging. Our research is a unique opportunity for a UK contribution to an important international Mars exploration programme at a modest cost. This research will therefore help build up the UK's limited experience of landing on Mars and bring the excitement of Mars exploration to the British public.

这项工作将是NASA的凤凰城兰德（Phoenix Lander）任务的一部分，该任务将于2008年5月将航天器派往火星，并对火星北极地区进行特写。大量冰位于那里的表面下方。机器人的手臂会挖掘地面，寻找有关冰的来源以及微生物是否可能居住在火星早期历史中的线索。我们对任务的贡献将通过三种方式帮助了解火星。首先，我们将确保显微镜在火星北极拍摄土壤和冰的最佳图片。我们将检查这些图片，以确定土壤是曾经是从湖泊或海中的沉积物中沉积的，还是在风中携带，还是直接来自侵蚀并破裂火山熔岩。其次，当凤凰号航天器从太空中掉落到火星表面时，它会因空气和减速而被摩擦而减慢。着陆器减速的数量取决于气压和温度。我们将使用测量的凤凰兰德斯的减速来计算气压和温度如何随高度变化。例如，这可以告诉我们有关气候的信息，例如，降落过程中是否存在云，还是空气干燥，有很多灰尘。第三，凤凰城的兰德（Phoenix Lander）进行了一个实验，在该实验中，机器人臂将土壤sc并与水混合。土壤中的盐将溶解在水中，溶液中的探针将测量盐的类型，例如，是否存在氯化钠，盐人用于食物。我们希望发现当大海干燥时，还是来自火山气体与土壤的化学反应时，火星上的盐是否被留在后面。凤凰城上的显微镜站，形成了我们研究的大部分研究，由传统的光学显微镜和称为原子力显微镜或AFM的非常高分辨率的显微镜组成。该显微镜站最初是由汤姆·派克（Tom Pike）博士在加利福尼亚州NASA的喷气推进实验室工作时建造的。尽管显微镜站已经完成，但在2001年将显微镜站带到火星赤道的着陆器被取消。但是，现在它将在2007年飞往火星北极。火星货币的不同条件意味着显微镜站必须以不同的方式进行操作。这项工作将使显微镜站的副本进入模拟室。各种冰和土壤样品将从机器人臂勺的副本中删除到站，并使用光学显微镜和AFM拍摄的显微镜图像。最初，需要进行一些人力干预以确保拍摄良好的图像，但是随着电台的经验越来越多，越来越多的操作将通过计算机控制自动执行。最终，显微镜站将能够单独拍摄良好的图像，因为它必须在火星上。这些用于自动操作或算法的方法将内置在控制显微镜站的Phoenix任务中使用的计算机代码。样品将在特殊选择的持有人上携带到显微镜上。使用类似于制造硅芯片的技术，可以切入一些硅，以最好地制作小冰和土壤颗粒以进行显微镜成像。我们的研究是英国为重要的国际火星勘探计划做出贡献的独特机会，价格适中。因此，这项研究将有助于建立英国在火星上降落的有限经验，并将火星探索的兴奋带给英国公众。

项目成果

Dual wavelength optical metrology using ptychography

• DOI: 10.1088/2040-8978/15/3/035702
• 发表时间: 2013-01
• 期刊: Journal of Optics
• 影响因子: 2.1
• 作者: Daniel Claus;David Robinson;D. Chetwynd;Y. Shuo;William T. Pike;José J De J Toriz Garcia-José-J-De-J-Toriz-Garcia-2253794777;J. M. Rodenbur

Search for ultraviolet luminescence of soil particles at the Phoenix landing site, Mars

在凤凰号火星着陆点寻找土壤颗粒的紫外线发光

• DOI: 10.1016/j.pss.2012.05.002
• 发表时间: 2012
• 期刊: Planetary and Space Science
• 影响因子: 2.4
• 作者: Goetz W

Microscopy analysis of soils at the Phoenix landing site, Mars: Classification of soil particles and description of their optical and magnetic properties

• DOI: 10.1029/2009je003437
• 发表时间: 2010-08-04
• 期刊: JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Goetz, W.;Pike, W. T.;Tanner, R.
• 通讯作者: Tanner, R.

Microscopy capabilities of the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer

• DOI: 10.1029/2008je003077
• 发表时间: 2008-10-31
• 期刊: JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Hecht, M. H.;Marshall, J.;Woida, P. M.
• 通讯作者: Woida, P. M.

Penetrators for in situ subsurface investigations of Europa

• DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2010.06.026
• 发表时间: 2011-08
• 期刊: Advances in Space Research
• 影响因子: 2.6
• 作者: R. Gowen;Alan Smith;A. Fortes;S. Barber;P. Brown;P. Church;G. Collinson;A. Coates;G. Collins;I. Crawford;V. Dehant;J. Chela-Flores;A. Griffiths;P. Grindrod;L. Gurvits;A. Hagermann;H. Hussmann;R. Jaumann;A. Jones;K. Joy;Ö. Karatekin;K. Miljković;E. Palomba;W. Pike;O. Prieto-Ballesteros;F. Raulin;M. Sephton;S. Sheridan;M. Sims;M. Storrie-Lombardi;R. Ambrosi;J. Fielding;G. Fraser;Yang Gao;G. Jones;G. Kargl;W. Karl;A. Macagnano;A. Mukherjee;J. Muller;A. Phipps;D. Pullan;L. Richter;F. Sohl;J. Snape;J. Sykes;N. Wells