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Fall 1999
Next Stop: Mars
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Several
important instruments are incorporated into the lander science package.
The Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) will acquire and analyze close-up
pictures of the landing site during descent; a Light Detection and
Ranging (LIDAR) experiment will utilize a microphone capable of
picking up the first recorded sounds from the Red Planet; and the
MVACS package will integrate features divided into four categories:
- the
Stereo Surface Imager, which will transmit highly detailed color
images of the area around the landing site, which later will be
converted into three-dimensional panoramas;
- the
meteorology package, which will measure wind direction and speed,
temperatures and atmospheric pressure — and use a sensor to measure
vapor, carbon dioxide and isotopic concentrations in the atmosphere;
- the
two-meter-long robotic arm — as strong and flexible as any human
arm — which will scoop soil from the Martian surface to be analyzed
by the UCLA team;
- the
Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, a collection of eight ovens
and a tunable diode laser spectrometer to heat and analyze samples.
The
payload will be exploring brand-new territory, and the polar terrain
that the spacecraft is targeting will surely appear dramatically
different from the turf scouted by the previous Mars lander missions
— something like the contrast between Santa Monica and the South
Pole. Paige explains that the south polar region was chosen because
the colder conditions and more variable climate make it the area
most likely to harbor a wealth of trapped volatiles and revealing
geologic formations. Of particular interest to the scientists are
the polar-layered deposits, a geologic unit that contains the type
of fine-scale layering that offers historical records of climate
fluctuations, just as records of the Earth's climate are maintained
in the polar caps of Antarctica and Greenland.
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