PASADENA, CA-A new robotic arm destined to dig deep into Mars' polar crust has been completed by Alliance Spacesystems Inc. (ASI), and delivered-one month early-to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for integration onto the Mars Phoenix lander, due for launch to the Red Planet next year.
It will be the first trenching device to visit Mars, and has a different capability than the robotic arms ASI built for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, says René Fradet, ASI president and CEO. "The robotic arm for Phoenix works like a mini-backhoe and is designed to dig a two-foot deep trench in Mars' north-polar region," Fradet says. The long-lived robotic arms on the rovers, meanwhile, perform more delicate tasks, precisely moving cameras and other instruments close to rock and soil targets.