NASA has cleared up a malfunction that for several hours caused a rupture in communications with the Phoenix Mars Lander, the US space agency said on Wednesday.

NASA said a "transient event" had knocked out UHF radio transmissions between Phoenix and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which relays data and instructions between the Phoenix and Earth.

A statement early on Wednesday from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California said the problem was solved late Tuesday, although scientists still do not know what caused the glitch.

"NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully received information from Phoenix on Tuesday evening and relayed the information to Earth," the statement said.

"The relayed transmission included images and other data collected by Phoenix during the mission's second day after landing on Mars," according to space officials, who added that the Mars Odyssey orbiter was scheduled to relay commands to the lander early on Wednesday.

The malfunction delayed the commands to deploy Phoenix's robotic arm, which will collect samples of soil and hopefully ice as well as traces of organic compounds, the building blocks of life.

Tuesday's communication snags notwithstanding, the mission so far as gone exceedingly well, US space officials said.

"Phoenix has performed extremely well, beyond our expectations. Currently it is in great shape," Gary Napier, spokesperson for Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which built the lander, told AFP on Tuesday.

"We hope to start digging into the Martian soil sometime in about a week" Napier said, after the arm is set up and programmed for the operation.

AFP