This is LIVE coverage of the landing of the Mars Phoenix Lander by the Coalition for Space Exploration's Education Station reporting team at Lockheed Martin near Denver on May 25, 2008! 

Lockheed Martin built the Phoenix spacecraft for NASA with the help of other aerospace companies and countries including the Canadian Space Agency.  NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is handling the navigation - the entry into the martian atmopshere, the descent and landing on the red planet's surface.  Mission Control for Phoenix Lander's science instruments is at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The Coalition's reporting team: 

- Crystal Bloemen - Teacher member of the Coalition for Space Exploration's advisory board and middle school science and biology teacher at Webber Junior High School in Fort Collins, Colorado

- Joel Peterson - Director of Webber Aerospace Ventures in Education (W.A.V.E.) and counselor at Webber Junior High School in Fort Collins

- Barbara David - Space Science Education Specialist, former teacher, journalist and space education consultant for the Coalition for Space Exploration (from Boulder, Colorado)

For more information and the latest on the Mars Phoenix Lander's mission, go to:   http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu

First report from Crystal:

It is an exciting, and nerve racking time waiting for the information on the landing to reach us.  After years of work for so many scientists, engineers, and all who worked on the Phoenix project, we are about to watch all of their hard work pay off.    There is a 15 minute time lapse between the events happening on Mars and the time the information can reach us here, even traveling at the speed of light.  This is an exciting mission for teachers and students to follow because we have only about 90 days of data collection on the polar ice caps of Mars.  What makes this mission so unique is all previous landers have landed in the equitorial region and this mission is to the polar ice caps at about 68 degrees north latitude; similar to northern Alaska here on Earth.  We are still waiting for the information........

Report from Joel:

The tension is palpable.  The whole room of people is tense with excitement.   The Lockheed Martin Control Center just reacted to a successful seperation of spacecraft portions as the Lander continues to descend to the Martian surface!  Lots of cheers and clapping here with the family members  .... it's standing room only here.  We are now waiting for the next stage of the landing sequence.  We're now 4 minutes past the separation and are awaiting parachute deployment.  This is a highly risky portion of the mission.  In the mission control area here the scientists and engineers are waiting nervously and many are pacing, unable to sit and wait.  Everyones eyes are glued to telemetry data generated on computer screens in mission control.  Phoenix has just entered the atmosphere of Mars.  Nervous laughter permeates through the mission control room.