Mars lander website opens

January 17, 2005 NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander program now has an official web site.

The mission of the robotic craft, scheduled to launch August 2007, is to explore the northern polar region of Mars (about 70° N latitude) in May 2008 and to expose the upper few feet of surface material using a robotic arm to find the ice that was discovered by the Odyssey mission in 2002.

The Phoenix lander is the first in NASA's new line of smaller "Scout" missions in the agency's Mars Exploration Program.