Guy Webster

“ McKay said. "It would mean that the ice is the place to find organics. Phoenix will be the test." The subsurface layers of ice, originally indicated by sensors on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft and recently imaged by the MARSIS radar on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, could be an organic-rich, frozen soup, according to McKay. ”

“ NASA sent two Viking landers to Mars in 1976, which landed in non-icy zones, but neither found any organics in those areas.
NASA has scheduled the Phoenix lander spacecraft for launch in August 2007. In May 2008. Phoenix is to land in an ice-rich area in the northern polar region of the planet between 65 and 72-north latitude. The lander's robotic arm will dig into the arctic terrain in search of clues about the history of water on Mars, and also for evidence of organics.
"It's got an arm that will dig to reach the ice which is below ground," McKay explained. ”

“ Engineers originally designed the martian lander to land in lower, warmer latitudes on Mars, where, presumably, there is softer dirt. Phoenix mission scientists are working to resolve the problem that the spacecraft was designed to work in softer soil. Scientists expect that ice on Mars will be very hard, because the temperature of ice on the red planet is extremely low. ”