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Alive and Well On Route To Mars
Tucson - April 9, 1999 - Science instruments built at The University of Arizona in Tucson are now halfway to Mars aboard the Mars Polar Lander, and they're doing just fine, according to checks made yesterday. Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) scientists learned yesterday that their instruments, a collection of ovens called TEGA, for Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, their Stereo Surface Imager (SSI) and Robotic Arm Camera (RAC) survived the Jan. 3 launch from Earth to the Red Planet. The first test was fired at 5:45 a.m. yesterday, April 7, and signals from the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft began carrying back the good news within the hour, LPL cientists say. All 16 ovens on TEGA appear ready for their mission, said David A. Kring, senior research associate at LPL and a member of the TEGA science team. TEGA was designed, built and tested by a group headed by William V. Boynton, UA professor of planetary sciences. The team includes project manager S. (Hopp) Bailey and LPL senior engineer Mike Williams. TEGA's job is to collect Martian soil samples with a robot scoop, sift them through a screen and then heat them in tiny electric ovens. The scoop was created by the LPL scientist Peter Smith and colleagues at Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy in Germany. Smith's team created the Stereo Surface Imager (SSI) and the Robotic Arm Camera (RAC) aboard Mars Polar Lander. SSI is an identical twin to Smith's Imager for Mars Pathfinder. The instruments get one more health check during their space cruise, in October, then land at Mars' South Pole on Dec. 3, 1999. The SSI, RAC and TEGA are integrated in the MVACS payload on the Mars Polar Lander. MVACS (Mars Volatiles and Climate Surveyor) was designed to study the distribution and behavior of water on Mars and the history of the Martian climate. David A. Paige of the University of California - Los Angeles is principal investigator for MVACS.
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