Phoenix Mars Mission

Launch: August 4, 2007
Status: Mission Completed

The Phoenix Mars Lander was the first mission to explore the Arctic region of Mars at ground level. Phoenix was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre aboard a Delta II rocket at 5:26 a.m. EDT on August 4, 2007. It landed near Mars's northern polar cap on May 25, 2008 in an area known as Vastitas Borealis, where it continued to operate successfully for more than five months (far beyond its planned 90-day lifespan).

The Phoenix Mission marked the first time that Canada, as a nation, landed on the surface of Mars. Canada's meteorological station recorded the daily weather at the landing site. It measured Mars' temperature and pressure, and probed clouds, fog and dust in Mars' lower atmosphere. Most significantly, the weather station confirmed that it snows on Mars by detecting snowflakes falling from clouds about 4 kilometres above the spacecraft's landing