A small US spacecraft has landed on a frozen desert at the north pole of Mars to search for water and assess conditions for sustaining life, Nasa officials said.
The Phoenixlanded last night after a plunge through the planet's thin atmosphere and thruster-jet landing to the Mars surface. It marked the first time that a spacecraft had successfully landed at one of the planet's polar regions.
One of the first images from the Phoenix Lander shows the surface of Mars after the spacecraft landed successfully in the first-ever touchdown near the planet’s north pole
"It was a hell of a lot scarier than the two Mars rovers," Nasa's space sciences chief Ed Weiler said, referring to the cushioned landings of the
Spiritand
Opportunityrovers. "I kept thinking, 'I wish I had airbags.'"
Pulled by Mars' gravity,
Phoenixwas tearing along at nearly 20,000 km/h before it entered the atmosphere, which slowed the craft so it could pop out a parachute and fire thruster rockets to gently float to the ground.
Flight controllers and scientists battled nerves as
Phoenixwrapped up its 10-month, 680 million-kilometre journey. In 14 minutes, the spacecraft transformed from an interplanetary cruiser to a free-standing science station.
"People got really uncomfortable," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which oversees the mission.
Scientists found in 2002 that Mars' polar regions have vast reservoirs of water frozen beneath a shallow layer of soil.
Phoenixwas launched August 4th, 2007, to sample the water and determine if the right ingredients for life are present.
It has already begun beaming back photos of the planet's surface.
Nasa attempted a landing on Mars' south pole in 1999, but a problem during the final minutes of descent ended the mission.
The US space agency canceled its next Mars lander but successfully dispatched
Spiritand
Opportunityto the planet's equatorial region to search for signs of past surface water.