Recently, a new NASA spacecraft began its journey to Mars with a successful launch from Florida. This one is called the Phoenix Mars Lander. If everything goes as planned, the Phoenix will land on Mars in May 2008, and with luck it will be able to find and analyze Martian ice.

Ice on Mars is really interesting to scientists for several reasons. First, if we were to ever send a manned mission to Mars, it would be helpful to have water available. It would mean that the mission might not need to carry its own water for the astronauts while they are living on the surface of Mars. Also, it might be possible to separate water from the ice into hydrogen and oxygen to create rocket fuel, which could also save a lot of weight.

Analyzing ice on Mars also is important because it could preserve evidence of life. If there ever were living organisms on Mars, the Phoenix would be likely to find their remains, or at least evidence of their remains, in ice.

The Phoenix weighs about 770 pounds. Once it lands and unfolds its flower-like solar panels, it is about 18 feet across. Unlike recent Mars missions that have used airbag systems to bounce the spacecraft to a soft landing on Martian soil, the Phoenix will use conventional retrorockets to land gently on Mars.

The Phoenix spacecraft is a robot that will sit still and use a robotic arm and drill to dig into the soil and ice. The most interesting part of the mission is what happens to that soil inside the robot. There are two instruments to analyze the soil: the MECA and the TEGA.

MECA stands for Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer. This device contains an optical microscope to look at soil samples and send back pictures. It also has an atomic force microscope for even finer detail. There also is a wet chemistry lab with four heated beakers (to handle four different samples). Martian soil and a special chemical solution will mix in a beaker and analysis will take a full day. These tests will let scientists look at different characteristics of the soil. The MECA instrument also contains a probe that can actually touch the surface of Mars to check temperature and conductivity.

TEGA stands for Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer. It uses eight tiny high-temperature ovens and a mass spectrometer to look at the chemical composition of the soil and ice. By heating the samples up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, the ovens gasify molecules so that the mass spectrometer can analyze them. If the spectrometers find organic molecules, that may indicate signs of life.

The Phoenix also has a complete weather station to measure weather variables like temperature and air pressure. Also on board are cameras and stereo imagers to allow scientists back on Earth to see what the Phoenix sees.

With a successful launch under its belt, the Phoenix's next step is to actually get onto Martian soil without damage. That is harder than it sounds. Of the last 15 missions sent to Mars, only five have actually made it.