Mars Lander Fumbles Soil Sample

Almost two weeks after NASA's latest robotic explorer made a picture-perfect landing on Mars, it was ready to get down to work. The Phoenix's main mission is to scoop up samples of dirt and ice and look for evidence of whether liquid water ever existed on the planet, and whether the conditions may have ever existed to support primitive life. By Friday it had unpacked its 8-foot robotic arm and practiced scraping dirt from the polar plain, and it was geared up for its first real tests. But when the Phoenix carried its first scoop of dirt to a tiny oven where the dirt would be analyzed, something went wrong. Photos show that the robotic arm did deposit a scoop of dirt in the proper screened opening, but sensors in the oven reported that no particles had made it through the screen and into the oven. NASA engineers scrambled for ...