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Mars lander prepares to dig for signs of habitability -
Summary from the United Kingdom, from articles in English
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The US space agency's new robotic craft on Mars has been commanded to carry out a second practice dig before beginning its real work. (article 1)
When the arm collected and released its first scoopful of soil on Sunday, some of the sample stuck to the scoop. (article 1)
" The team felt they weren't really comfortable yet with the digging and dumping process said the mission's chief scientist , Peter Smith, from the University of Arizona, Tucson. (article 1)
The extra practice means the earliest that Phoenix would flex its 2.25m-long robotic arm to claw below the planet's northern plains for scientific study would be Wednesday. (article 1)
It will carry out a three-month mission to study Mars' geological history and determine whether the Martian environment could once have supported life. (article 1)
Images taken by the robotic arm camera revealed the spacecraft may have uncovered patches of water-ice when its thrusters blew away loose soil during the landing. (article 1)
For the second practice "dig and dump", engineers told the robot to go slightly deeper in the same region and use the camera on its arm to take photos this time. (article 1)
New photos sent back by Phoenix showed one of the spring-loaded doors on the oven complex had failed to open all the way. (article 1)
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Other summaries about this story:
Event tracking:
Story keywords
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Mars, Phoenix, lander, NASA, planet |
Source articles
- Mars lander gets digging practice (BBC News, 06/04/2008, 395 words)
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blaster@cs.columbia.edu
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