spaceflightnow.com
1855 GMT (2:55 p.m. EDT)
After being folded up on Earth a year ago, the Phoenix spacecraft’s robot arm finally got to move Wednesday as flight controllers began the process of unstowing the scoop-laden appendage that will dig up samples of the frozen martian terrain for study.
Flexing its wrist to free one restraint, the elbow lifted the forearm from a second restraint and then the 7.7-foot-long arm raised above its cradle that had protected the critical device during the rigors of launch last summer and Sunday night’s descent onto the arctic plains of Mars.