The Polar Lander Hits, Then Gets Ready to Listen to Mars

Fortunately, for NASA, the second time's the charm — or so it seems. On Friday, the space agency's engineers celebrated the fact that, as far as they could tell, the second of their two $100 million Martian landers didn't get lost in space. All indications were that the Mars Polar Lander enjoyed a safe touchdown at right around its scheduled landing time, 3:01 p.m. EST. But NASA failed to receive a signal from the craft during the first 20-minute communications window, beginning around 3:40 p.m. The Lander is the partner craft to the Mars Climate Observer, which was famously lost near Mars after scientists had a mixup between the U.S. and metric measuring systems. This time, a NASA spokesman called the landing "flawless."

Now comes the wait for the data. By landing at the planet's south pole, the Polar Lander will be able to sample one of the likeliest spots to find traces of water on the planet, and where there's H20 there could be life. But the real fun starts Saturday, when we get a planetary first: Mars wired for sound. If everything works as planned, a small, cheap microphone placed on the lander by the Planetary Society will begin streaming the sounds of the Red Planet to a web page near you. Which if nothing else means next time a Mars probe goes astray, we'll be able to hear the crash.