NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander is ready to touch down on the red planet today. Excitement related to such a huge event is bound to make the team involved nervous, more so, because NASA’s earlier expedition The Mars Polar lander never ‘landed’ on our neighbor’s pole, it simply crash landed. Since the Phoenix Lander is set to do the job the Polar Lander couldn’t, the adrenalin is pumping higher.

Back in 1999, when the Polar Lander began its descent onto the Martian Pole, NASA couldn’t communicate with the crashing bot as it failed the landing. This, is precisely what is giving the team ‘7 minutes of terror’, the seven minutes for which NASA will not have any contact with the device.

The Phoenix Lander is into the final stages of its 12 million miles journey that took 10 months and has cost the space agency $420 million. Those seven minutes will make up the most critical part of the journey; the part where the bot will reach Martian atmosphere and go into the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) phase. Unfortunately, this will be the point when the lander will be on its own, without any contact or communication with its masters on Earth. This phase will take seven minutes, and consist of 26 pyrotechnic events. If even a single event in this goes out of place, the Phoenix will burn and go down in history as a failed mission, much like its predecessor.

If the lander manages a smooth touchdown, it will soon set a communication path with its control center and get on to work... to find the age and density of water in the polar ice caps of the red planet. Gathering information that will pave the way for man’s final conquest of its neighbor, a time when humans will set foot on another planet.

Let’s hope the Phoenix doesn’t burn down to ashes. Hopefully, it will complete its mission, and as a bonus, it may even find the remains of the Polar lander, something NASA is looking for.