Frozen death looms for Phoenix Mars Lander

Resurrection?
The big question will be what happens when Phoenix emerges on the other side of winter: Can it live up to its name and come back to life when spring brings back the sun?

Not likely, Goldstein and Taylor said.

Phoenix does have a built in reboot program that its designers call a "Lazarus mode," "where when energy comes back into the vehicle from the solar arrays — if and when energy comes — it'll automatically try to reboot and try to communicate," Goldstein explained. But he doubts that will happen.

"I would be overjoyed to hear something come back from Phoenix; I'm extremely ... I find it very, very unlikely," Goldstein said.

The reason Goldstein, and others on the Phoenix team, think it unlikely that Phoenix will make a comeback is simple: The lander has entered conditions on the surface beyond what it was built and tested to withstand.

"We passed the warranty a long time ago," Goldstein said.

The build-up of frost is part of the problem. While the amount of ice reaching down to Phoenix's latitude may only be a thin layer, it could also be enough to encase the lander in ice. Phoenix's engineering team tested the lander's survivability under many scenarios, but "that was a test I refused to do during development, survivability if encased in CO2 ice," Goldstein said. ("I was going to call that the Ted Williams test," he joked, referring to the legendary Boston Red Sox player who had his body cryogenically frozen after he died.)

But even without being entombed in carbon dioxide ice, Phoenix likely won't survive the harsh winter because even in the summer, the lander needs heaters to keep its electronics warm enough to function.

Phoenix's circuit boards and wiring are generally regulated to about -40 degrees Fahrenheit (-40 degrees Celsius) for optimum performance.

"So will they survive past that? Yeah they will, but at some point they're going to get so cold that they won't survive," Goldstein said.

Most electronics can only last down to about -148 or -193 F (-100 or -125 C), after which some of the materials that make them up go below their glassification temperature.

Goldstein explains glassification this way: "Think about a rubbery substance or a plastic substance becoming brittle like glass, and once that happens, it starts to crack," Goldstein said.

If Phoenix's electronic components crack, it's unlikely the lander will be able to resurrect itself even when sunlight returns to the northern hemisphere in the spring.

"The kind of temperatures we're talking about with no energy to keep the vehicle warm, it's pretty difficult to imagine," Goldstein said.

Come spring on Mars (summer on Earth, as the Martian year is longer), when sunlight has been streaming down long enough to potentially re-awaken the spacecraft, NASA will likely listen for any beeps coming from Phoenix, though Goldstein doesn't think they'll here anything. So once Phoenix dips below its energy threshold around the end of November, that will likely be all she wrote for the mission.

"It's a fun project but we're getting near the end," Goldstein said.

MORE FROM RETURN TO THE RED PLANET

Return to the Red Planet Section Front

Meteorite study revives life-on-Mars debate Stuck Mars rover makes first move in months Spirit gets set for its great escape Mars rover Spirit has amnesia — again The Martian lives of Spirit and Opportunity NASA's Mars rover might be stuck for good Mars canyon formed when plug was pulled Opportunity rover finds meteorite on Mars Looking to Mars as the next frontier Martian surprises explained Return to the Red Planet Section Front   Add Return to the Red Planet headlines to your news reader: