Phoenix lander to touch down in northern plains and use robot arm to probe ice layer
NASA’s first Mars Scout programme mission, the Phoenix lander, has been given the go-ahead for an August 2007 launch after a threat of a two-year delay caused by budget constraints.
The stationary lander, which is equipped with a long robot arm, will touch down in the northern plains of Mars, at a latitude of 70° north, in May 2008, to look for water ice and possible indicators of past or present life.
The region is “analogous to the permafrost regions of the Earth”, according to Peter Smith, the mission’s principal investigator, at the University of Arizona.
In 2002, NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter found evidence of ice-rich soil near the surface in the arctic regions. The Phoenix’s robot arm will probe into the ice layer and place samples into a laboratory in the spacecraft designed to measure volatiles such as water and organic molecules.
The Phoenix is based on the Mars Surveyor lander, which was cancelled in 2000, but kept in clean-room storage at Lockheed Martin. NASA says the Phoenix will cost $386 million, not including a proportion of the $283 million cost of the original Mars Surveyor orbiter and lander.
TIM FURNESS/LONDON
Source: Flight International
