The now-fixed-by-itself radio glitch which plagued the Phoenix Mars lander yesterday will delay its operation by a day, because the remote command could not be issued in time. The UHF radio system used by the orbiter to communicate with the lander had gone into a standby mode earlier Tuesday for a still undetermined cause. This prevented sending Phoenix any new commands from Earth on Tuesday.

Fortunately, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully received information from the Phoenix Mars Lander last night and now mission scientists are eager to move Phoenix's robotic arm, for that arm will deliver samples of icy terrain to their instruments made to study this unexplored Martian environment.

"All this is a one-day hiccup in being able to move the arm around, so it's no big deal," said Ed Sedivy, Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., as quoted by AP.

It is still unknown why the radio shut off, but a cosmic ray may have been responsible, NASA said. The lander's 8-foot robotic arm will be unfolded today and will be used to dig for ice which might be buried beneath the planet's surface. It appears that the landing spot is ideal for the Mars lander's mission. Phoenix appears to have set itself on the edge of a trough, an ideal place for the digging operations.

Phoenix is the sixth successful landing on Mars, out of twelve total international attempts, and was built by Lockheed Martin with additions from several partners. Most notably, the Canadian Space Agency provided a high-tech meteorological station, including an innovative Laser-based atmospheric sensor; and Alliance Spacesystems, LLC built the robotic arm. Phoenix was launched on August 4 last year.