NASA has conducted several missions on Mars to conduct scientific experiments, and many of its scientific efforts, as well as many of those of other space agencies, have been directed toward the Red Planet.

NASA initially launched the Mars Phoenix Lander in August 2007 with Mars as its destination. In May the following year Phoenix landed on the barren surface of the planet and began its mission of scientific scrutiny. One of the main tasks assigned to the Phoenix was to find out whether water ice was present in Mars’ soil.

Phoenix accomplished this successfully, as it found evidence of ice in the soil. After its initial mission time of three months had expired, NASA kept the Phoenix going, and only closed it down in November of 2008 as NASA lost communications with the lander after the weakening sunlight of the Martian winter was unable to sustain the Lander’s power and communications with it were lost. One of the last things that the Phoenix lander was able to do in its final operational days was to shine a laser up at the higher atmosphere of Mars and detect the presence of floating ice crystals – it was snowing on Mars!

The wintry power-loss was something that was expected by NASA, although it did continue to try and get a response from the device using command satellites in Mars’ orbit; all to no avail unfortunately. NASA reported this week that controllers had finally stopped trying to use the two probes orbiting the planet to communicate with the lander.

The last communication reported from the Phoenix to the Mars Odyssey orbiter was on November 2. Controllers tried once more, on November 29, to raise the Phoenix. By this time it was hopeless, as the worsening Martian winter left the lander with insufficient solar energy to maintain working power levels, especially considering that the harsh cold would require more and more energy of its built-in heaters, energy without which the cold would most likely damage the lander’s electronics beyond the possibility of repair.

NASA says however that there is a remote chance that the Phoenix lander could survive the -150 degree Martian winter, and is planning to use its Lazarus function to wake it up and re-establish contact with the lander in the next Martian spring time. It will remain to be seen if the Phoenix will be able to, like its mythical counterpart, rise from its ashes and continue its work in the name of science

The Phoenix, as well as the twin Martian rovers called Spirit and Opportunity, are all waiting for the days to grow longer as the vernal equinox on Mars draws near in February. Godspeed to all of them.