Larry Bryant of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena will be joining the Orange County Space Society for a special program on the afternoon of Sunday, May 18.

Larry will be talking about the Phoenix Polar Lander, which is scheduled to touchdown in the high latitudes of the Martian north on Sunday, May 25.

This is the second attempt at landing a science station so close to one of the Martian poles. The last attempt occurred in 1999 with the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander that crashed while attempting touchdown near the South Pole.

Hopefully, this time around, all the kinks are worked out and we'll have a successful landing.

This will be the first time since the Viking missions where we will hopefully have a safe touchdown on the surface of Mars using rocket braking instead of air-bags.

This vehicle is much too heavy for the air-bag approach.

Following the program by Larry at 2:00 pm, we will also have our regular Orange County Space Society monthly membership meeting. 

At the meeting, we have a grand agenda of space activities to discuss. We will be finished by approximately 4:30 pm and anyone who would like is also invited to join us for dinner nearby.