New images from NASA's Mars InSight lander show itsrobotic arm is ready to do some lifting.

With a reach of nearly 6 feet (2 meters), the arm will beused to pick up science instruments from the lander's deck, gently setting themon the Martian surface at Elysium Planitia, the lava plain where InSight toucheddown on Nov. 26.

But first, the arm will use its Instrument DeploymentCamera, located on its elbow, to take photos of the terrain in front of thelander. These images will help mission team members determine where to setInSight's seismometer and heat flow probe - the only instruments ever to berobotically placed on the surface of another planet.

"Today we can see the first glimpses of our workspace,"said Bruce Banerdt, the mission's principal investigator at NASA's JetPropulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "By early next week, we'llbe imaging it in finer detail and creating a full mosaic."

Another camera, called the Instrument Context Camera, islocated under the lander's deck. It will also offer views of the workspace,though the view won't be as pretty.

"We had a protective cover on the Instrument ContextCamera, but somehow dust still managed to get onto the lens," said TomHoffman of JPL, InSight's project manager. "While this is unfortunate, itwill not affect the role of the camera, which is to take images of the area infront of the lander where our instruments will eventually be placed."

Placement is critical, and the team is proceeding withcaution. Two to three months could go by before the instruments have beensituated and calibrated.

Over the past week and a half, mission engineers have beentesting those instruments and spacecraft systems, ensuring they're in workingorder. A couple instruments are even recording data: a drop in air pressure,possibly caused by a passing dust devil, was detected by the pressure sensor.This, along with a magnetometer and a set of wind and temperature sensors, arepart of a package called the Auxiliary Payload Sensor Subsystem, which willcollect meteorological data.

More images from InSight's arm were scheduled to come downthis past weekend. However, imaging was momentarily interrupted, resuming thefollowing day. During the first few weeks in its new home, InSight has beeninstructed to be extra careful, so anything unexpected will trigger what's calleda fault. Considered routine, it causes the spacecraft to stop what it is doingand ask for help from operators on the ground.

"We did extensive testing on Earth. But we know thateverything is a little different for the lander on Mars, so faults are notunusual," Hoffman said. "They can delay operations, but we're not ina rush. We want to be sure that each operation that we perform on Mars is safe,so we set our safety monitors to be fairly sensitive initially."

Spacecraft engineers had already factored extra time intotheir estimates for instrument deployment to account for likely delays causedby faults. The mission's primary mission is scheduled for two Earth years, orone Mars year - plenty of time to gather data from the Red Planet's surface.

About InSight

JPL manages InSight for NASA'sScience Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program,managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including itscruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.

A number of European partners,including France's Centre National d'tudes Spatiales (CNES) and the GermanAerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES and the Institutde Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) provided the Seismic Experiment forInterior Structure (SEIS)instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute forSolar System Research (MPS) in Germany, the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH)in Switzerland, Imperial College and Oxford University in the United Kingdom,and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3)instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK)of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain's Centro deAstrobiologa (CAB) supplied the wind sensors.

For more informationabout InSight, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

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