On the 25th May, NASA’s Phoenix robotic spacecraft will descend onto the surface of Mars.
NASA and JPL have produced an excellent video (which I found on the Bad Astronomy blog) describing the processes involved with getting the probe down safely and highlights the difficulties of doing so.
Phoenix has a massive scientific payload, including robotic arms, stereo cameras, descent imagers, various chemical analysers and climate detectors. The mission aims to study history of water on the surface and to search for of “biological paydirt” in the icy-soil layers of the surface.
Here’s the video:
