NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander spent its first full day in the Martian arctic plains checking its instruments in preparation for an ambitious digging mission to study whether the site could have once been habitable.
The three-legged lander set down Sunday in relatively flat terrain covered by fissures outlining polygon shapes. The geometric cracks are likely caused by the repeated freezing and thawing of buried ice.
Images beamed back late Monday showed the elbow joint of Phoenix's trench-digging robotic arm still partly covered by a protective sheath. The sheath was supposed to fully unwrap after landing.
Mission scientists downplayed the problem, …
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