OVERVIEW:
The Phoenix Mars Mission, scheduled for launch in August 2007, is the first in NASA's "Scout Program." Scouts are designed to be highly innovative and relatively low-cost complements to major missions being planned as part of the agency's Mars Exploration Program. Phoenix is specifically designed to measure volatiles (especially water) and complex organic molecules in the arctic plains of Mars, where the Mars Odyssey orbiter has discovered evidence of ice-rich soil very near the surface. more

MISSION STORY:
Similar to its namesake, Phoenix "raises from the ashes" a spacecraft and instruments from two previous unsuccessful attempts to explore Mars. The 2001 lander, administratively mothballed in 2000, is being resurrected for the Phoenix Mission. Similarly, many of the mission's scientific instruments have already been built, requiring little or no modification for flight to Mars. more

TECHNOLOGY:
Phoenix is a fixed lander, using a robotic arm to dig to the ice layer and analyze samples with a suite of sophisticated on-deck scientific instruments. more

 

For more in-depth, up to the minute coverage of the Phoenix Mars Lander visit the official information web site: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php


Phoenix lander image An artist's depiction of the Phoenix lander on the martian arctic plains

 

 

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NASA
The Phoenix Mission is led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership with Lockheed Martin Space Systems. International contributions for Phoenix are provided by the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), the University of Copenhagen, and the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
 UA LPL