Martian Summer Read online

  “We dumped on TEGA and it doesn’t go in the oven. Hunh …” Peter says and shrugs.

  It’s Mars’s fault.

  “I’M NOT WORRIED,” SAYS PAT WOIDA CONVINCINGLY, RUSHING THROUGH the crowd in his Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts. I struggle to keep up with him. He is sure that TEGA got the sample.

  “Look in the scoop,” he says. There’s no fuss. “This picture was taken after the delivery but it’s full of fines.” The image is of an empty scoop with some dirt in the bottom. “TEGA is designed to accept material just like that!”

  “Look at those particles,” he continues. “Isn’t it obvious?” I appreciate that Pat assumes a level of understanding commensurate with my security badge. It makes me feel like one of the team. Although, if I don’t say anything, I’m not going to know what’s going on.

  “It’s not obvious,” I say outing myself as an ignoramus in matters of Martian geology. Pat does not ridicule. He graciously offers a lesson in Martian soil mechanics:

  The first lesson: it’s not soil. You probably shouldn’t call it “earth” either. Things would get confusing, fast. The official term is “regolith.” Pro tip: if you want to feel like you really belong in Mission Control just drop “regolith” into casual conversation. It’s instant SOC cred. Turns out the word “soil” implies that you have microbes and other living stuff in there. So it’s inaccurate to call it soil until we can show that there are microbes living on Mars. There might be; but we don’t know that. Yet.

  Anyway, this regolith is a mélange of dust and rocks and other kinds of particles. A big part of Phoenix’s directive is to use the tools on board to compile a basic understanding of this stuff. If we can identify what kinds of minerals make up the dirt clump resting on TEGA, we can infer all kinds of information about the history of mountains, rivers, or even oceans on this site.

  “Now, you got a couple kinds of particles to know,” Pat says. He seems to enjoy breaking it down. “The ‘fines’ describe the smallest particles in a size classification that goes from clays, to silts, sands, cobbles, and then to boulders. For geologists, it’s important to know how much energy is required to move these particles around if you’re going to be scooping them up and dumping them into your instruments.”

  The amount of energy required to move particles is very high when they are large like pushing a boulder. As they get smaller it gets easier; like blowing a grain of sand. Yet, once the particles get sufficiently small, the clay stage, it gets more difficult again.

  “It’s hard to scatter clays; you couldn’t blow it off your hand like sand,” Pat says. If these are densely packed clays, this could be the cause of the clumping. Or just one of many causes.

  It’s perilous to make any conclusions with so little evidence. And there are other possible explanations. There could be some static charge holding them together. Frost could freeze the particles together. All they know is that they’ve dumped the regolith onto TEGA but it’s just clumped on top.

  “Don’t worry. It’ll get in,” Pat says confidently. “There were plenty of ‘fines’ to get in there, so there’s nothing to worry about.” But if Pat is wrong and it’s more “cloddy” than they imagined, they’ll have to try something else.

  After my lesson, Pat tells me that he’s not working today. It’s his day off. Could have fooled me.

  “I’m just here for a few minutes,” he says.

  Since we’re the only folks on Earth working the Mars night shift, there’s not much to do when we’re out of phase with Earth. The only people you can interact with are colleagues. Pat says he’ll stick around for a bit and then he’s got eight hours to kill. “I might just watch all three Lord of the Rings—director’s cut. That should fill up the day.”

  A PROCESSION OF TEGA AND RA ENGINEERS MARCHES OFF TO THE small conference room just behind downlink. The room is known as the “Penalty Box” and sometimes called the “Wood Shed.” It’s where you go when your group runs afoul of space law. The idea is that a small group can better address the problem (or assign blame). A new plan must be finalized soon, so time is crucial. They will need to quickly come up with a new plan of action, but it’s not clear yet what exactly the problem is. The mission rests on the ability to pick up dirt and deliver it to scientific instruments for analysis. So far, the images tell a confusing story of failure involving some strange property of Mars dirt. This is far more worrisome for the fate of Phoenix than just a missed delivery, programming error, or “Mars-lagged engineer.” They want to try to get the dirt in right away, but they need to make their best guess at what’s going on with the clump and how best to fix it.

  WHEN THEY EMERGE FROM THE PENALTY BOX, RAY ARVIDSON CALLS for the midpoint meeting to begin.

  “There is no first sample,” Ray tells the group, lingering for a moment so they can all have a moment with their disappointment. Chris Shinohara, who is the instrument manager for the SSI (and the General Manager of the SOC and Peter Smith’s consiglieri) shakes his head.

  “This is really the first big disappointment of the mission,” I say to him, trying to sound insightful.

  “No. When the filament went on TEGA, that was a disappointment. Then when the TEGA door wouldn’t open, that was a disappointment. And when we couldn’t control the OEM, that was a disappointment too,” Chris responds. I’m in over my head.

  Joel puts himself in charge of the problem. He is the “anomaly lead.” When things go wrong in Mission Control, they’re called anomalies. It’s an appropriate euphemism because nothing really goes “wrong.” Things just don’t go as expected. It’s a good lesson. The anomaly lead official determines what happened, tells everyone how to keep it from happening again, and then, most importantly, files an incident report on it. Everyone takes his place at the big conference table.

  “We went back to the woodshed and now we have two hypotheses,” Joel says. “The first is that the material is sticky. The second is that the solenoid has a mechanical problem.” The solenoid is a shaker that sluices the material through a grate that sits on top of the TEGA oven. “In light of these hypotheses, we made a decision: we will stand down,” Joel says. That means do nothing. Everyone agrees they need time to understand how best to break up the dirt pile and shake it down into TEGA, where it will be heated and properly analyzed. They want to take some time in the lab on Earth to figure out how that might work best. And with a stroke of the delete key, the old plan is tossed aside. There will be no TEGA bake experiment on Mars today. Tonight, it’s all hands on deck figuring out what to do next. It’s a little pause to give us our best chance for a bake in the next few sols. The meeting is dismissed and everyone scurries off to his computer. Work on a new plan begins.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CONTROL ROOM

  SOL 13

  THE SOC IS NOT THE DECK OF THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE. THERE are no titanium space consoles or glowing red orbs. There are control rooms at Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers that look like the mission you’re imagining in your head—these are the first class, flagship missions from the good old days of the Cold War, when nuclear destruction was imminent and we were competing for space supremacy with our comrades in Russia. We don’t have one of those control rooms. There’s a fancy control room with blinking lights and fancy gadgetry at the Jet Propulsion Lab. We don’t have one of those either. This is a barebones budget mission. But hey, we’ve got spirit.

  I like to think the church basement aesthetic for a scientific laboratory is not a budget constraint but a brilliant gambit from our captain, Peter Smith. Although, Peter might disagree. It’s a bold move indeed. By rejecting the clichéd Mission Control look, Peter limited the temptation to rely on outdated mission memes for our modality of discovery. This is not Battlestar Galactica. We are not Viking I. We are not Viking II or Pathfinder or even the Polar Lander. We are Phoenix. We’re using light brown industrial carpet, regular old cubicles, and aluminum or plastic folding chairs. There are no plants, and some of the acoustic tiles on the ceili
ng are broken. With this particular design motif, the central feature of the downlink room could never be a command module for the captain. There isn’t even a lectern. Instead, we have a few folding tables of discovery pushed together. Sprouting from the center of these tables are green and yellow power cables attached to the projectors and A/V system.

  At first you might feel there’s a sad kind of impermanence to the whole place—like 90 days from now when Phoenix dies, a van is going to pull up to the SOC and repossess everyone’s space dream. That feeling is fleeting. Soon you fall in love with the minimalism. We don’t need any of that NASA junk. This DIY version is a far more hopeful space. It reminds us that no idea is so big that it can’t be made operational with furniture bought at Staples.

  At the head of the table is one large red director’s chair. It’s much higher than the 18 other folding chairs. It says “Smith P.I.” on the back, fitting for the captain of this vessel. The letters are embroidered in the Star Trek font, called galaxy. That’s not NASA standard issue.

  “It was a gift,” Peter says, for an indefatigable effort to get his colleagues to Mars.

  At the foot of the table, next to the projector screen, is a seat reserved for one of the cruelest gigs in the space biz: Science Plan Integrator I (SPI I). It’s the SPI I’s job to manage the lander’s schedule. Try being the executive assistant to a famous spaceship: non-stop requests for experiments, appearances, and interviews.

  As SPI I you must have a pretty firm grasp on lander subsystems, resource constraints, and all kinds of other esoteric space planning minutiae. There is a whole slew of flight rules that, if violated, will bring the wrath and fury of a team of engineers lying in wait. There are a lot of systems and subsystems. Each comes with a whole team of engineers. These folks stand around the SPI and ask for their activities to be included in each day’s plan. The SPI must scream at them to back off and give her some damn space. You can’t do science with all these people up in your grill.

  Today’s SPI I is Suzanne Young, a chemist from Tufts. She has very long brown hair and is partial to flowing dresses. She also has a strict rule about more than one engineer within a two-foot radius while she takes requests for lander activities. I imagine that she’s one of those tough-as-nails young professors who fails a lot of students but inspires a few to become the Peter Smiths of the next generation. Some of those brilliant students are here working on the mission.

  Suzanne spent yesterday, her day off, here working. She says her days off are the only real time she can get some science done. Suzanne helped develop MECA’s wet chemistry experiments. Like many of the science team members, Young acts as a systems engineer. She pretty much volunteers for any job they’ll give her—eliciting an occasional deep exhale from senior team members who’d rather not have her bite off more than she can chew.

  She attended almost all training missions and never shied away from double duty in spite of the long hours and stress. Many of the scientists who use research grants to fund their work here have the the same impossible workload as Young. It makes this low-budget mission possible. Normally these jobs would be staffed by JPL engineers. Phoenix didn’t have enough money for all the positions it deemed necessary. They had a choice: operate short-staffed, or ask the scientists to step in and train for engineering gigs.

  “There aren’t all that many chances to operate a spacecraft on Mars,” Suzanne says. “So it’s kind of a no-brainer.”

  Each sol is an elaborate color-coded array of activities: digs, photos, measurements, data uploads, downloads, maintenance, and upgrades. In case you find yourself in Mission Control, it might be helpful to know that TEGA is purple; MECA is green; SSI is red; the RA is yellow and blue for MET. The SPI I arranges the activities in an efficient manner and in line with the greater goals of the mission. The SPI I is part Sotheby’s auctioneer, part horse-trader.

  Seated opposite the SPI I is the science lead. The sci-lead, as he’s referred to on the job, oversees the process from the scientific perspective. The sci-lead has an engineering counterpart, the shift lead. Together they work with the SPI I to incorporate the requests for various lander activities. They must be mindful of short-term constraints like how much power the solar panels collect, the state of the battery, equitable distribution of lander resources, and long-term goals. Every few days, sci-leads, SPI I’s, and all the other support positions swap roles or rotate out of the lineup.

  “You have to keep people fresh and engaged,” Joel says. “Plus, it’s safer to have multiple people that can do each job.” This will be especially true at the end of the mission as the sol schedule takes its maximum toll on everyone’s physical and mental strength.

  The 16 other folding chairs around the conference table represent the various instrument and science theme groups. There are four theme groups: Geology (GSTG), Chemistry (CSTG), Atmospherics (ASTG), and Biological Potential (BSTG). In the Phoenix organizational scheme, the theme groups consult with the instrument groups to create strategic plans. Then those plans are all compiled to create a tactical plan. If all goes well, that’s turned into robot code and then radiated out into space for Phoenix to receive at its next scheduled communications pass. All this planning confusion starts to make sense after a few months of observation. At first, it’s a little overwhelming.

  In the depths of the SOC, down one hallway and then another, then a left when you hit a dead end, is the Payload Interoperability Testbed (PIT). The PIT is a warehouse-like space that holds the lander’s gimpy non-flying twin; I call her PHX II. Bathed in spotlights and the over-chilled air of the PIT, when you catch sight of her at just the right angle, Phoenix II has the uncanny ability to give you the we-work-in-space chills. It’s the best antidote for the inscrutable planning sessions.

  The PIT offers the most cinematic, sci-fi feel in the building. Interns from the local art museum even arranged the rocks on Phoenix II’s platform to match what we see in the pictures downloaded from Phoenix I. It really freaks out the conspiracy theorists.

  Phoenix II lives on a platform three or four feet high. A sign overhead reads: “FLIGHT HARDWARE: PROTECT IT!” It reminds engineers of the gravity of this space. Aluminum police barriers protect the stage from any screaming fans who might try to rush up or throw their underpants. The education and outreach team offers tours most Wednesdays. As soon as our schedule swings around to daytime, we’ll be sure to attend. If you’re lucky, you’ll see PIT test engineers wearing Phoenix lab coats and grounding straps approach the lander to prod some gizmo or blinking light with a probe. The PIT is used to test all the digging and shaking before the commands are compiled into robot instructions to send out into space. If you get really lucky, you might just see Bob Bonitz, the world’s foremost robot arm man, digging in concrete trays or the various sand pits. If you’re extra nice, he’ll let you carry a tray.

  This is one of a few extra super-restricted spaces in the SOC. There’s a short list of people with access to the glass-enclosed work area and lander stage. I’m not on it. Yet.

  In the kitchen, just down the hallway from the PIT, there is stale coffee available for a quarter and an honor bar. I pour myself a cup of coffee and open one of the three freezers, hoping to find the free ice cream. There is no free ice cream here. Mostly frozen burritos. Someone posted a theme group sign on the freezer, “Biological Potential.” Mars humor at its finest.

  “Want a sandwich?” Morten Madsen asks. The Danish team makes sandwiches in the kitchen. It may be the middle of the night in Tucson, but it’s lunchtime on Mars. The bologna sandwich break is a good opportunity for small talk. Morten Madsen is a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He is the leader of the magnet team but not the sandwich making operation. Morten’s team built a magnet experiment—part of the MECA package. His former and current students are also involved in the RAC and TEGA, and they built the telltale for the MET. Madsen’s lab has a wide breadth of space projects.

  “Running a research group is like owning a small b
usiness. You worry a lot about getting enough money to pay all your employees and keep your doors open,” Morten says. “But we get by.”

  Morten Madsen is the undisputed master of Mars magnets. His mentor, Jens Martin Knudsen, passed the torch when he left the pole position. Now he carries the mantle for an innovative and expanding Danish space program.

  “Most of my career is about iron,” Morten says. As a graduate student, he studied how beavers use iron in their teeth. Although it’s not exactly clear how, this led to an interest in studying how iron in insects enabled them to navigate. He planned a field study in Australia to do the work.

  “My funding fell apart and I couldn’t go. So I found something even farther than Australia that had a lot of iron,” he says. Morten decided he’d investigate the iron deposits on Mars.

  That was his calling: iron and magnetism on Mars.

  “Yes, I would say magnets have a strong pull on us,” Morten says, preempting my opportunity to make a bad joke. The draw is that iron deposits could tell us something about the history of water on Mars. Morten and one of his graduate students, Kristoffer Leer, explain how this rather odd-sounding phenomenon works. Line Drube, another one of Morten’s students, organizes their lunch station.

  “Different minerals form based on their iron content’s exposure to water,” Leer says. “If you can identify the minerals in the dust, you can start to understand the history of water on Mars. It’s like a look back in time.”

  Why is this important? Understanding the history of water on Mars is one of Phoenix’s “Level One” requirements. Phoenix has 10,000 requirements. These are basically the promises made to NASA about what Phoenix will do. NASA is also fond of well-defined success metrics. The 10,000 requirements of Phoenix are broken down into five levels. “Level One” requirements concern the big picture, and include things like “understand the history of water on Mars.” “Level Five” requirements are more specific, such as how an instrument might perform, say, or the heating capacity of the TEGA oven.