News Planetary Science

Rarin’ to go

Phoenix prepares to scoop up the soil

By Ron Cowen

- More than 2 years ago

After a day’s delay, the robotic arm on Mars Phoenix Lander is free of its shackles. “Our arm was cooped up in restraints for 14 months and is rarin’ to go,” Matt Robinson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said during a May 28 press briefing at the University of Arizona in Tucson.