Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.u11b0017c&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #U11B-0017
Mathematics
Logic
0300 Atmospheric Composition And Structure, 3346 Planetary Meteorology (5445, 5739), 3349 Polar Meteorology, 5405 Atmospheres (0343, 1060), 5739 Meteorology (3346)
Scientific paper
The atmospheric structure at the time of landing of NASA's Phoenix probe has been derived from measurements of the aerodynamic drag of the spacecraft during atmospheric entry and descent. The result provides the first atmospheric structure in Mars' polar environment obtained from in situ measurements. Phoenix was equipped with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that used accelerometers for linear acceleration measurement in three Cartesian axes and ring-laser gyroscopes to measure the three- dimensional orientation of the probe (Taylor et al., 2008). The temperature structure of the atmosphere along the flight path was calculated via a four-step process: (i) integrating forward the IMU data to obtain the time history of the spacecraft velocity vector relative to the atmosphere as a function of altitude; (ii) calculating atmospheric density from drag, with iteration for aerodynamic coefficient dependence on density; (iii) integrating the hydrostatic equation to derive the vertical pressure; and (iv) calculating atmospheric temperature from the equation of state. Initial profile reconstruction shows reasonable agreement with predictions in the middle atmosphere for the given season and time of day (landing occurred at 16h 33min 37sec in local solar time expressed as a 24-hour clock). However, the derived lower atmospheric structure below ~0.1 mbar is generally warmer than predicted. A possible explanation could be a shallower vertical distribution of dust that usually assumed. References: P. A. Taylor, D. C. Catling, M. Daly, C. S. Dickinson, H. O. Gunnlaugsson, A-M. Harri, C. F. Lange, Temperature, pressure and wind instrumentation on the Phoenix meteorological package, J. Geophys. Res., 113, EA0A10, doi:10.1029/2007JE003015, 2008.
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