Phoenix lands, transmits images from Mars

TUCSON, May 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency's rover Phoenix sent images of itself back from Mars to Earth Monday, showing it had landed and was ready to look for signs of life.

The Mars Phoenix Lander also sent images of the flat valley thought to have water-rich permafrost within reach the spacecraft's robotic arm, NASA said in a news release.

"We see the lack of rocks that we expected, we see the polygons that we saw from space, we don't see ice on the surface, but we think we will see it beneath the surface. It looks great to me," said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona at Tucson, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission to Mars.

Phoenix's cargo includes science instruments to assess whether ice just below the surface ever thaws and whether some chemical ingredients of life are preserved in the icy soil, NASA said. Phoenix will also study other aspects of the soil and atmosphere.

Mission team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver; and the University of Arizona cheered when the rover landed, NASA said. Only five of 13 previous attempted Mars landings were successful.