A mission to search for life on Mars will enter a critical stage when a spacecraft attempts to land on the planet after a journey of 422 million miles.

The Phoenix landing craft should take less than seven minutes to plunge through the atmosphere and touch down after deploying its parachutes. But with 6 of the previous 11 attempts to land on the surface having ended disastrously, the craft's controllers are only too aware that a single mistake or a stroke of bad luck could send it slamming into the ground, causing its destruction or loss from contact.

“This is not a trip to Grandma's house. Putting a spacecraft safely on Mars is hard and risky,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for Nasa's Science Mission Directorate.

Phoenix, a $420 million (£210 million) project, has spent ten months travelling from Earth to Mars and is approaching at 12,750 miles per hour (20,500km/h). The parachutes will be deployed at an altitude of 7.8miles when the velocity has slowed to 1.7 times the speed of sound. As long as the craft manages to land in one piece soon after midnight on Monday morning it is expected to start sending photographs of the landscape about two hours later.

The landing zone is at a more northerly latitude on the planet than any previous mission in a region thought to have an icy permafrost just beneath the surface.

Among the chief tasks of the lander is to use its robot arm to take samples of the ice and analyse them for the carbon-containing chemicals that are essential ingredients for life.

With its two solar panels unfurled, Phoenix is 16ft wide and 5ft long (4.9m x 1.52m). It weighs 772lb (350kg), including 55lb of scientific instruments.

Colour calibration tools on board the craft will allow scientists their best sight yet of the true colours of the Martian landscape. Previous data revealed the planet to be yellow-ish brown close up, rather than the red seen from Earth, but the new equipment should provide greater information than before.

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