Where there is water there tends to be life. It would rock our world to find life on another planet. The rovers approached Mars in much the same manner and were slowed by parachutes, but were delivered to the surface by bouncing along inside an inflated ball. This was the first successful Mars landing without airbags since Viking 2 in 1976.

The entire Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence takes 7 minutes. Earth and Mars are so far apart that it takes over 10 minutes for a signal to get from the lander to Earth. This means that by the time they hear from the lander that EDL has started it will be over.

“We’ve passed the hardest part and we’re breathing again, but we still need to see that Phoenix has opened its solar arrays and begun generating power,” said JPL’s Barry Goldstein, the Phoenix project manager. If all goes well, engineers will learn the status of the solar arrays between 7 and 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time (10 and 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time) from a Phoenix transmission relayed via NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Bravo team NASA.

MarsPhoenix I’m sitting on very flat surface here. Tiny rocks around my foot pads. The horizon is flat and looks perfect for digging!!!

I also enjoyed the first-person tweets on Twitter as MarsPhoenix kept us up to date at each stage. I look forward to future tweets as Phoenix begins to explore the landing site.

(Update: First pictures are up! May 25, 2008, 9:47PM CST)

(See also: NASA: Phoenix Spacecraft Lands at Martian Arctic Site, May 25, 2008)
(See also: NASA: Phoenix Spacecraft EDL video dramatization)
(See also: NASA: Phoenix Mars Lander)
(See also: Twitter: Mars Phoenix)