The lander's scoop containing a soil sample is poised over the partially open door of the TEGA's No. 4 cell, or oven.

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Fire up your oven, Phoenix; it's time to get cooking.

With its first test sample of soil gathered, the UA-led Mars mission is poised to begin testing the red planet's arctic crust this weekend by heating a tiny sample to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's a significant moment for the spacecraft, which touched down on Mars on May 25, marking the mission's transition from self-check mode into full-blown science, said Peter Smith, the University of Arizona's lead scientist for the mission.

"This is an exciting time," he said Friday. "There is so little known about (Mars') mineral composition and how the elements are combined."

Mission planners hoped to learn overnight Friday whether the sample dug from Mars earlier in the week had been deposited in the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.

Once the deposit is confirmed, scientists and engineers will tell the instrument to fire up one of its tiny ovens and see what cooks off.

Built by the UA and the University of Texas at Dallas, the experiment is designed to give researchers a profile of the soil's makeup based on what material vaporizes during the heating.

"We'll make a measurement for the first time of the soil and that could tell us how much water is in the soil and what minerals," Smith said.

NASA's Phoenix mission, which is searching for signs of liquid water and whether the planet ever had a climate suitable for life, cost $420 million.

The mission's science is being conducted at the UA, which is the first public institution to lead a NASA mission to Mars.

The lander's robotic arm dug up roughly a cup of dirt on Thursday and swung into position to deliver the sample to the analyzer, said Matthew Robinson, the lead software engineer for the lander's robotic arm.

The scoop contained another clump of whitish material similar to what researchers saw earlier when taking a practice sample.

Although no one is sure what the material is — the predominant theory is a mineral or salt — it's probably not ice, Smith said.

"We suspect that the actual ice is going to be very hard," Smith said. "I tend to agree that it's not ice, but I can't say for certain."

The experiments conducted on the first sample will take several days to complete and probably even longer to analyze, Smith said.

In addition to the ongoing TEGA analysis, the lander's arm will continue to work in the coming days, scooping up two more soil samples that will be delivered to Phoenix's microscope and wet chemistry lab.

Robinson said he was relieved and excited to begin the scientific phase of the mission, likening it to a football team that had been practicing for months without ever playing a real game.

"By the end of the preseason, they're chomping at the bit, ready to get out on that football field and do it for real," he said.

"Our preseason has been five years long, and we're just raring to go."