Mars Polar Lander Will Arrive on Mars Today

SpaceRef has put together a special “Focus on Mars” feature on the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) mission. Included in this feature is background material on the MPL and DS-2 missions, an enhanced version of our Whole Mars Catalog, and a special search engine we have created that covers Mars Polar Lander information located on NASA’s MPL mission websites. Once the lander has touched down and starts sending back data we will continue to update this search engine every 6 hours during the active data collecting phase of the mission. We have also created a control panel (above) with hot links to the best web locations for news, images – and more.

Just as the Mars Pathfinder mission served as a rousing rebound from the unfortunate demise of Mars Observer, let’s hope that Mars Polar Lander and DS-2 (and the continued success of Mars Global Surveyor) can do the same after the recent mishap with Mars Climate Orbiter.