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Mars Lander Loads Testing Oven

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The Associated Press

Published: June 12, 2008

LOS ANGELES - NASA's Phoenix Mars lander was not the only one doing the shaking.

Scientists operating the spacecraft broke into song and dance Wednesday after learning that their latest effort to shake lumps of Martian soil into a tiny testing oven worked.
Mission scientist William Boynton, who leads the oven experiment, recalled how he danced to the disco tune "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" after announcing the good news to his team.

"The dirt finally did start to flow and we actually got a full oven," Boynton, of the University of Arizona in Tucson, said at a news conference. "So that problem is now behind us."

Scientists have twice failed to get soil scooped up from the Martian arctic into one of eight miniature ovens on the lander that will test for evidence of the chemical building blocks of life. In a last-ditch effort this week, scientists vibrated the dirt-covered mesh screen a final time in hopes that bits would shake through and fill the oven.

Data sent back by Phoenix early Wednesday showed its baking instrument brimming with a pinch of soil, enough to conduct the first experiment of the mission. The next step is to seal the oven and gradually heat the soil up to 1,800 degrees to measure the amount of water and study the minerals in the sample. Results from the first analysis are expected next week.

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