Last week, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were hopeful about the chances of the Phoenix Mars Lander making it to the surface of Earth's nearest planetary neighbor in one piece after a 10-month, 422 million-mile journey.

The Martian surface is littered with the carcasses of probes sent by nations that couldn't figure out how to land gracefully on the Red Planet. The United States lost an orbiter and a Mars Polar Lander in 1999, to NASA's humiliation. The success rate for Martian missions launched worldwide hovers at less than 50 percent, which are lousy odds when the average project costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

Out of the ashes of previous programs, the Phoenix Mars Lander was born. At $420 million, it cost less than previous Martian spacecraft. If it could survive what NASA engineers called "the seven minutes of terror," when the lander had to cut its speed from 12,000 mph to a gentle descent, a new era of Martian exploration would be born.

On Sunday NASA got its answer. The Phoenix landed safely in the planet's northern polar region. Everything from the on-board cameras to the solar panels worked as designed.

The Phoenix Mars Lander now begins a three-month search for traces of ancient and current microbial life beneath the permafrost. An 8-foot robotic arm will dig and retrieve samples from beneath the surface for study by scientists back home. It is an ambitious project that will pay dividends in the years it will take to analyze the data.

By the time the first human sets foot on Mars two decades from now, the Phoenix lander will have long since ceased functioning. But Earthlings don't have to wait that long to celebrate the project's success. This exquisite example of American know-how has already proved it has the right stuff.