Mars or Bust: Robot to Try Sunday Landing
Despite past failures, scientists keep pushing to reach the red planet.
May 23, 2008 — -- NASA engineers will be holding their breaths Sunday, as a digging robot attempts a precarious landing on Mars' surface.
NASA's Phoenix Lander was launched in August and has traveled 122 million miles to Mars. It is a $457 million robotic spacecraft -- equipped with a backhoe, cameras and a compact chemistry lab -- that will attempt to find out whether the cold, forbidding surface of Mars could once have been warm enough for microbial life to exist on the planet.
Phoenix is scheduled to land Sunday evening at 7:38 p.m. ET. It must first separate from its rocket and then survive a harrowing seven-minute descent at 12,600 mph. It will then slow down to 5 mph to land in one piece on the planet's unexplored north pole.
Mars has attracted more space missions than the rest of the solar system's planets, but nearly two-thirds of all Mars missions have failed in some way.
Statistics tell the story. Since 1960, the United States, Russia, England and Japan have launched a combined 36 missions to the red planet. Only 13 have succeeded.
It's called the "Mars curse," but the overwhelming odds against success don't keep scientists from trying to find out more about the first planet beyond Earth in the solar system.
Ed Weiler, NASA's space science director, understands the risk.
"This is not a trip to Grandma's for the weekend," Weiler said. "There are many risks and uncertainties and there are always the unknowns."
The memories of the failed Mars Polar Lander in 1999 are fresh in the minds of scientists. The Polar Lander was sent rocketing to Mars on Jan. 1, 1999, and was expected to land Dec. 3. Dec. 3 came and went with no signal from the Polar Lander. Engineers in the control room posted a sign with big letters, reading "MPL Phone Home."
Some missions have defied the odds, including the two Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which parachuted to Mars in 2003 and landed on huge air bags that cushioned the impact. They rolled out of the air bags and set off to explore. The Rovers were only supposed to run for six months -- but five years later they are still sending information back to Earth.
