MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES
July 14-18, 2008

o THEMIS ART #89 (Released 14 July 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20080714a

o THEMIS ART #90 (Released 15 July 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20080715a

o THEMIS ART #91 (Released 16 July 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20080716a

o THEMIS ART #92 (Released 17 July 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20080717a

o THEMIS ART #93 (Released 18 July 2008)
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20080718a

All of the THEMIS images are archived here:

http://themis.asu.edu/latest.html

July 18, 2008

Sonja Alexander
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761
sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 08-180

NASA ANNOUNCES COMPETITIVE GRANT PROGRAMS

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Office of Education at headquarters in
Washington
has announced three new extramural funding opportunities that could
result in the award of grants or cooperative agreements.

One of the three funding opportunities is the K-12 Competitive Grants
Opportunity, a competitive education grant program targeting
secondary school level teaching and learning, with grants being
awarded to U.S. public schools and non-profit organizations. The goal
of the opportunity is to seek out and support new, innovative, and
replicable approaches to improving science, technology, engineering
and mathematics (STEM) learning and instruction. This will leverage
NASA's unique contributions to STEM fields.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1794

Nasa's Phoenix Mars Lander Continues Tests with Rasp
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
July 18, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The team operating NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander plans
to
tell the lander today to do a second, larger test of using a motorized
rasp to produce and gather shavings of frozen ground.

The planned test is a preparation for putting a similar sample into
one
of Phoenix's laboratory ovens in coming days. The instrument with the
oven, the Thermal and Evolved- Gas Analyzer (TEGA), will be used to
check whether the hard layer exposed in a shallow trench is indeed
rich
in water ice, as scientists expect, and to identify some other
ingredients in the frozen soil.

Cassini Significant Events
for 07/09/08 - 07/15/08

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired on July 15 from the
DSN tracking complex at Goldstone, California. The Cassini spacecraft
is in an excellent state of health and all subsystems are operating
normally. Information on the present position and speed of the
Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" page at:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm.

Wednesday, July 9 (Day of Year (DOY) 191)

A Spacecraft AACS Periodic Engineering Maintenance (PEM) occurred
July 9, 2008. Performed every 90 days, this activity exercises the
Engine Gimbal Actuators and the back-up Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA)
#3. In the RWA exercise, the wheel is commanded to +100 rpm, -100
rpm, 0 rpm, then turned off.