On May 25, the eyes of the world will be on Tucson as the “Phoenix,” the United States’ latest effort to land on Mars will descend to the red planet. It marks the first time in the history of the nation’s space program that a University will be in control of the mission, and is a huge honor for the University of Arizona.

Courtesy of UA/NASA/JPL

On May 1^st on Capitol Hill in Washington, a replica of the lander was put on display, and UA President Robert Shelton and others spoke to a crowd inside the Rayburn House Office Building. The Phoenix will land just south of the Mars polar ice cap, and hopefully will find evidence of water and life.

“The long question about Mars is was there ever life there, is there life now?,” said UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Director Dr. Michael Drake. “We can answer that question better if we go to areas where there was water or is water, because there is no life without water.”

At the exhibit in Washington, people could use the lander’s shovel system to see how it will gather evidence on the Mars surface. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center last August and will have flown over 420 million miles when it lands.