May 14, 2008 – 10:22 pm

Phoenix is on target to become the first spacecraft to land in the arctic regions of Mars, and perhaps provide us insight into the possibility of sustainability of life (past, present and future) on the red planet.

On the projected date of May 25th, the Phoenix spacecraft will be the first lander to set down in the northern arctic regions of our friendly neighbor planet, Mars and will be the f irst to be able to evaluate the polar icecaps.

The relatively low cost $325 million mission launched August 2007 and has traveled about 422 million miles (679 million km) to reach Mars. The projected time of landing is 7:53 p.m. EDT (2353 GMT) on May 25th, 2008

Even after traveling 422 million miles, the last 7 minutes during its atmosphere entry and landing will be the most critical portion of the flight’s success (obviously)

Space.com and Nasa.gov has put out two videos that provides an excellent overview of the mission and landing.

Edit (05/25/08): Successfully landed on Mars! Sent pics, see updates here: Nasa Official Site Hooray for Man!