If all goes right, in June 2008, a small piece of the Palouse will be stabbing into the northern polar ice cap of Mars.
Pullman-based Decagon Devices Inc., founded in 1983 by former WSU soil scientist Gaylon Campbell, has 44 employees researching, creating and marketing products that have applications in foods, pharmaceuticals, biology, forestry, soil sciences, and now, researching Mars. The Phoenix Lander is planned to land May 2008 in the northern polar region of Mars, and expose the upper few feet of surface material using a robotic arm to find the ice discovered by the Odyssey mission in 2002.