Countdown to Phoenix landing with Canadian weather station

The Maple Leaf Alights on Mars - Phoenix Lander on the Red Planet

Sunday, May 25, 2008 The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is hosting a media gathering at its space base in Saint Hubert, Quebec to celebrate the arrival of the Phoenix Lander on Mars. En Francais

The party in St Hubert starts at 7:30 pm EDT with a presentation and talk by Steve MacLean, CSA Chief Astronaut. Thanks to the live feed from Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Arizona, participants in the CSA event will join millions worldwide watching the landing of this tough little scrapper of a lander.

Once grounded. Phoenix will deploy a Canadian weather station to record the daily weather of the Martian northern plains; its temperature, wind and barometric pressure and more .

Following the landing event, St Hubert attendees will view Mars from CSA's observatory. Information on the Phoenix Mission is available on the CSA Web site at www.space.gc.ca. Image courtesy University of the West of England