Doors Fully Open on Phoenix's Next Oven
The double doors on the right are wide open in this image of four pairs of oven doors on Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA).
This pair of doors is for TEGA's oven number zero, the third of the instrument's ovens to be opened and the first for which both doors have opened fully. The lander's Surface Stereo Imager took this photo on July 18, 2008, during the 53rd Martian day, or sol, since Phoenix landed. The image has been brightened to show the fine mesh.
The doors are about 10 centimeters (4 inches) tall.
The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.
Photojournal Note: As planned, the Phoenix lander, which landed May 25, 2008 23:53 UTC, ended communications in November 2008, about six months after landing, when its solar panels ceased operating in the dark Martian winter.