News.com NASA Phoenix Mars Lander. image:40146:1::0

On the morning of May 25, the Phoenix Mars Lander will land on Mars and will explore the soil to see any signs of life and also study the ice in the North Polar region.

The Mars Lander will land on its three legs and won’t be mobile like its counterpart, the Mars Rovers. Landing is very crucial for this mission, since it has to land on three legs and not with air bags like the rovers.

After detailed analysis of pictures of the Mars’ surface by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have chosen the landing spot in northern part of Mars. The landing site is situated at 68 degree north latitude, 233 degrees east longitude. This site will be further north than other landing sites so far.

Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington told Reuters:

This is not a trip to grandma's house. Putting a spacecraft safely on Mars is hard and risky.

The Phoenix Mars Lander will enter the Mars atmosphere at 13,000 mph and slow down to 5 mph when it reaches the surface and lands, seven minutes later.

Once it lands safely, a 7.7 foot robotic arm will dig for oil and ice samples. When the arm encounters icy patches, a ripper will be used to dig the surface, then serrated blades will scrape the soil. The scoop then will capture the samples.

Onboard laboratory instruments in the Phoenix will analyze the samples. Cameras and a Canadian-supplied weather station will also supply other information about the site's environment.

The mission’s goal is to check whether conditions at the site was once favorable for microbial life or not. They will also test the composition and texture of soil above the ice. They will study the scooped samples to see whether they contain carbon-based chemicals, which are potential building blocks and food for life

The Lander carries a Surface Stereo Imager, built by the University of Arizona. The camera will provide high resolution, stereo, panoramic images of the Martian surface. The camera will be located at the top of the Phoenix and take photos with a resolution of 1,024 x 1,024 pixels. It has optical and infrared filters to correct the images.

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith with project management at JPL. The development partnership is with Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions are from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.