Rocket blasts off carrying Mars lander

A robotic dirt-and-ice digger blasted off today on a 422 million-mile journey to Mars that Nasa hopes will culminate next spring in the first landing within the red planet’s Arctic Circle.

The unmanned Delta rocket carrying the Phoenix Mars Lander rose from its seaside pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 10.26 Irish time, exactly on time, and hurtled through the clear moonlit sky.

If all goes as planned – a big if considering only five of the world’s 15 attempts to land on Mars have succeeded – the spacecraft will set down on the Martian Arctic plains on May 25, 2008, and spend three months scooping up soil and ice, analysing the samples in minuscule ovens and mixing bowls.