It was a frosty -58 F degrees when the newest $557 million probe to land on Martian soil arrived without a hitch. The manner of its landing was both a throwback to previous methods and a dress rehearsal for future human missions to the Red Planet. The Phoenix probe, while capable of transmitting directly to Earth, is sending much of its data though the series of tubes that is the still buggy Martian Internets. Its thin-pipe connection left scientists out of contact with the probe for more than an hour after landing was confirmed. While it's sending terrain porn to researchers -- along with news, weather and traffic information -- it's primary function is to snort Martian arctic regolith for signs of life, past or present.
Phoenix was a product of NASA's since mostly discredited "smaller, faster, cheaper" philosophy. It was resurrected from the 1999 mission that ended in tears and took 10 months to travel to Mars and landed without an airbag. The probe is a stationary robot with a scoper arm designed to grab soil and inject it into the probe's innards of instruments. They are hoping to accomplish some real science before the -200 F Martian winter kills the probe. Mars is a tough gig though. Out of 42 missions since 1960, half of the probes sent there have died on arrival, though NASA has a better than average success rate of 71 percent. Phoenix brings the number of operational Mars probes to six, three orbiters and three on the surface.
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