In Asia, the name may be an honor but in North America it's a cruel joke ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - NASA officials say plans for the Phoenix Mars Lander's second day of activities on Mars have been delayed.

They say it's because of a problem in relaying communications from one of two Mars orbiters relaying commands from Earth.

Fuk Li, manager of the Mars exploration program for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., says that a "transient event" on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter turned its UHF radio off. That stopped communications between it and the lander.

But Li and others say it is not a significant problem.

Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, the mission's principal researcher, says plans called for maneuvers Tuesday to unhook the lander's 8-foot robotic arm from a latch holding it in place during its space flight and landing sequence.

The lander will go through a preprogrammed sequence of other activities, but digging likely will be delayed until sometime this weekend or next week.

On the plus side, a guy could loudly drop the f-bomb at work and claim that he was simply calling a coworker... 

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written by Monty, May 28, 2008

Could their middle name be ing-Ug ?

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written by Dinosaur, May 28, 2008

they funny think about that is that his co workers could but not him or do you want people on the mars project who talk to themselves?

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