By Xinhua,
Beijing : NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander has successfully flexed its robotic arm on Mars, media reported on Friday.
“All of the joints are healthy, and we’re raring to go,” Matthew L. Robinson, the lead engineer for the mission’s robotic arm flight software, said at a news conference Thursday.
Overcoming one of the few glitches in the mission so far, the 2.35 meter titanium and aluminum backhoe-like extension, with a scoop on the end to dig into the Martian arctic permafrost-like soil, unlatched its arm-locks by command from the JPL (U.S. space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California), lifted its forearm and then freed its elbow restraint.
The next step is to test the arm’s four joints to be sure it is in working order before beginning to dig into the soil.
The primary mission for the lander is to dig into an ice layer believed to exist a few inches beneath the surface and look for signs that this region of Mars, in the far northern plains, might have been warm and wet in the past.
The spacecraft completed a 360-degree panorama, showing what Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, the principal investigator, described as a “hummocky terrain” — mostly flat with slight bumps and troughs caused by the expansion and contraction of under-surface ice.
The three-month mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and managed by JPL.