The lander probably will encounter temperatures ranging from highs of about minus 10 to minus 15 degrees Celsius, or around 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit, to lows of about 40-below on either scale, Murphy said. The terrain will be much different from the rocky surface seen by previous missions. It's believed that this has some relationship to climate changes. This is material, ice and dust, that has been deposited from the atmosphere over time. Most of the ice probably is composed of water, Murphy said, with some carbon dioxide ice also probably present.
Carbon dioxide is the primary gas in Mars' atmosphere.
Knowing how much dust blows into or out of the region during the 90-day mission, and whether the dust is mixed deep into the Martian atmosphere or concentrated near the surface, will be valuable in a number of ways, Murphy said. If you have a model that agrees with your actual observations, then you can be more confident in using your model to extrapolate over long periods of time. If the model doesn't agree, you figure out what the discrepancy is and in that way you improve the models that we use. As a participating scientist, Murphy will work with the project's meteorology team in deciding how to collect, process and analyze data. He also will be involved in archiving the data that the lander sends back, for use by scientists the world over.