After a 10-month, 422-million-mile journey, NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander completed a successful touchdown in the Martian arctic. Radio signals received at 2353 GMT on May 25 confirmed the Phoenix Lander had survived its final descent, 15 minutes earlier. This was by no means guaranteed. Landing on Mars, with its thin atmosphere, is difficult. Only five of the previous 11 attempts have succeeded.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/Lockheed Martin

"In my dreams, it couldn't have gone as perfectly as it did tonight," said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The Mars Phoenix mission takes its name from the mythical bird that rises from the flames of its own death. This is because much of the mission hardware was taken from the Mars Polar Lander mission cancelled in 1999. It is part of NASA's Long-Term Mars Exploration Program. This program aims to characterize Martian climate and geology, determine whether life ever existed on Mars and prepare for human exploration.

Mars is a cold dry planet. However, surface features suggest that liquid water flowed there in the past, and liquid water is a requirement for life. In 2002, the Mars Odyssey Orbiter discovered large amounts of subsurface water-ice in the northern arctic plain. It is to the Martian arctic region that the Phoenix Lander has gone, to search for the ice and to examine it.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

The early pictures (above) sent back to Earth show a textbook arctic terrain. The surface has been broken into polygonal slabs by the repeated freezing and thawing that occurs above permafrost.

Better still, pictures beamed back this weekend (below) show what could be ice exposed by the exhaust of the Lander's retro-rockets as it touched down.

NASA/JPL-Caltech//University of Arizona/Max Planck

The Lander has spent the last week readying itself for its 90-day mission. It passed a "safe to proceed" review on Thursday evening.

The focus of attention over the next three months will be the robotic arm and what it can scoop up. This arm will dig beneath the surface to look for ice. On Earth, cold resistant microbes can survive in similar conditions. Although the Lander cannot directly detect life, it is equipped to analyze the ice for organic compounds. These compounds, made up of mainly carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, are the telltale signs of life.

Additionally, the Phoenix Lander has carried a Canadian built weather station to Mars. This will stay operating and transmitting for as long as possible. It will be sending back some interesting data as the Martian northern hemisphere descends into winter. As winter closes in, the Phoenix Lander will be gradually buried under a layer of frozen carbon dioxide -- a death this phoenix will never rise from.

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