Ioonos

Phoenix on route for Mars

Phoenix, the American space probe, is on route for Mars, but there’s a long way to go…

The probe left Cape Canaveral in Florida on 4 August 2007 and is expected to land in the planet’s arctic north in May 2008. In the forty years that man has been trying to land on the red planet, only five out of fifteen attempts have been successful.
The Phoenix will use its 2.35 metre long robot arm to dig into the planet’s surface to a depth of 50 cm and collect a few soil samples. If all goes to plan, it will be the first probe to come into contact with Martian water!