The Phoenix has landed!

After more then 5 year of planing, testing and re-scheduling the mars Phoenix Polar Lander has landed on the north pole of Mars. The Lander touched down at 7:53pm EDT after a picture perfect decent.

The only problem during landing was a 7 sec delay in the deployment of the parachute which left the lander slightly downrange from it's intended landing site. I've got some photos of the surface posted here that are from the first return of data.

The University of Arizona has taken over the project now that we have arrived on mars and over the next week will take pictures and test the health of the craft to prepare for the main mission of examining and testing the soil of mars for possible water or life! Please check back as new results come in!
Here is a time line of what will happen now that Phoenix has safely touched down on mars.

Main Phoenix website http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/
NASA Phoenix Website http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html
My Phoenix Gallery http://www.thefamilygeek.net/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=686