Phoenix Mars Lander, designed to carry NASA's 420 million US dollar three month mission to the Red Planet, which touched down on the surface just a little over a week ago, made its first dig test in the Martian soil on Sunday with the 2.4 meter long robotic arm, revealing bright white bits of material that could be either water ice or salt.

"We see this nice streak of white material. We don't know what this material is yet", said Pat Woida, senior engineer at the University of Arizona at Tucson. The chemical composition analysis of the material will reveal in the future weeks if it is indeed water ice, but until then the lander needs to finish preparations.

Similar bright white material has been spotted by the camera on board the robotic arm while viewing the soil under the spacecraft, which was probably uncovered by Phoenix's thrusters during the landing sequence. The mission of the newly landed robotic spacecraft is to establish whether or not water is present in the respective region, and if the clime of Mars was ever able to support life.

The problem experienced with the heating element of the gas analyzer in the outcome of the short circuit last week has been solved during the weekend, while mission controllers continued the experiments regarding the digging techniques they would use during the mission. The next step is to identify a good digging site in the vicinity of the lander, by executing three side by side digs.

Material scooped up the Phoenix's robotic arm will be delivered to the gas analyzers which will heat it up hoping to identify possible organic compounds. Later in the mission, Phoenix is scheduled to examine some of the samples under a microscope and inside a wet chemistry laboratory.

"We're ready to go. We're pretty excited to get on with business here", said Ray Arvidson from the Washington University.