A spacecraft orbiting Mars has photographed the Phoenix Mars Lander on the surface of the red planet, NASA scientists announced Tuesday.Mission controllers also said the mission has hit its first snag, as the radio on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which communicates with Phoenix, has shut itself off due to an unknown problem. Despite this setback, Phoenix seems to be doing just fine.
"Phoenix is healthy, everything is fine," said Fuk Li, manager of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The radio shutdown prevented mission scientists from sending Phoenix its instructions for the day Tuesday morning, as well as from receiving another set of images from the lander. MRO controllers are working on the problem now and hope to have it fixed for the next scheduled link-up this evening.
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