Allan I. Carswell Ph.D. (Toronto) Professor Emeritus of Physics This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Research Field: Planetary Physics and Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physics Research specialization: Lidar studies of the atmosphere; optical physics; atmospheric physics. Publications

The focus of Professor Carswell's current lidar research is on "PHOENIX", the NASA 2007 mission to Mars. A group of Canadian Scientists centred at York University and supported by the Canadian Space Agency and engineers and specialists at MD Robotics and Optech Incorporated are developing instrumentation to fly to Mars in 2007 as part of the Phoenix Mars mission. NASA announced in August 2003 that Phoenix, with the Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, had been selected for launch in 2007 as the first in a new line of smaller "Scout" missions in the agency's Mars Exploration Program. The selection followed a highly competitive evaluation of about 25 proposals.

The Phoenix mission incorporates a diverse set of scientific instrumentation. Included is a Canadian instrumentation group called MET, essentially a Mars weather station capable of making important new measurements of the Martian atmosphere. The principal instrument of the MET Station is a laser radar (lidar) sensor developed by Optech Incorporated in association with MD Robotics and the Canadian Space Agency. The Phoenix science team of Canadian researchers includes Professors Allan Carswell, Diane Michelangeli, Peter Taylor and Jim Whiteway from York University, Professor Tom Duck from Dalhousie University, Professor Carlos Lange from the University of Alberta and Dr. David Fisher from Geological Survey of Canada.

Phoenix is designed to land in the high northern latitudes of Mars, and will follow up on Mars Odyssey's discovery of near-surface water ice in such regions. It will land in northern Vastitas Borealis region, a terrain suspected of containing as much as 80 percent water ice by volume within 30 centimeters of the surface, and conduct the first subsurface analysis of ice bearing materials to assess the biological potential of the planet.

The Phoenix mission includes a robotic arm to excavate a trench and gather samples for analyzing the geology and chemistry of the regolith. A mass spectrometer sensitive to minute quantities of organic molecules baked out of heated samples enables assessment of the habitability of the soil in this ice-rich region. By analyzing constituents that go into solution, wet chemistry chambers test the conditions created during potential wet epochs. A microscope station examines the grain properties of the soils. The role of the Canadian MET station is to provide information for characterizing Mars' present climate and climatic processes. In particular, combined data from the lidar and the temperature and pressure sensors will provide a comprehensive characterization of Martian weather at the landing site. The lidar will provide information on the depth of the Martian boundary layer, the location, structure, and optical properties of clouds, fogs, and dust plumes within the boundary layer. The lidar will have the capability of probing the Martian atmosphere to distances of about 20 km. Information on the formation and movement of clouds, fogs, and dust plumes will add valuable new information on the climate of Mars and will enhance the ability to model the key atmospheric processes.