RICHARDSON, Texas (Aug. 4, 2003) – A space
scientist at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) is a member of a team selected by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to undertake the first of the space agency’s “scout” missions
to the planet Mars, scheduled for launch in 2007 and arrival one year later.

The goal of the unmanned mission is to conduct a variety
of scientific experiments from a lander that will dig a trench in the surface in an attempt to discover
where the water that ran over the surface of Mars eons ago has gone.

Dr. John H. Hoffman, a UTD physics professor and member
of the university’s William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences,
will receive funding of approximately $4 million to build the project’s mass spectrometer instrument
system, which will be connected to a series of ovens designed to “cook” materials dug from
the trench to determine their water content. In addition to performing sub-surface soil studies,
the instrument will analyze the atmosphere of Mars.

Hoffman is a member of a team of researchers lead by
Dr. Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson. The team’s concept for the Mars Scout mission
– called Phoenix to symbolize rising out of the failed 1999 lander mission to Mars – won a competition
against proposals from three other research teams. The selection of the winning team was announced
earlier today by the space agency.

Phoenix involves placing a lander laden with sensors
onto the Martian surface in the northern region where the Mars Odyssey spacecraft has observed excess
amount of hydrogen that most likely comes from sub-surface water.

“The water should exist beneath the surface but
not more than one or two feet down,” said Hoffman. “The water is most likely frozen, but
if it has melted a number of times during the life of the planet, it could provide a habitat region
for microbes. Of course, finding evidence for life, past or present, on Mars is the ultimate goal
of the Mars exploration program.”

In addition to the trench experiment, Phoenix instruments
will study the atmosphere and climate history of Mars. If Mars has had copious amounts of running
water in the distant past, as channels on the surface indicate, the climate in the early times likely
was greatly different from that of today.

Hoffman, who has worked at UTD and its predecessor
research institution since 1966, has designed and built scientific instruments that have flown on
numerous missions of exploration – both manned and unmanned – into space and to other planetary bodies
and objects, including the moon, Venus and Halley’s Comet.

Hoffman’s work on Phoenix is one of many projects under
way at UTD’s Hanson Center for Space Sciences. Other significant work includes space weather research
being done by Dr. Roderick A. Heelis, director of the center and chairman of the physics department,
under a $10-million grant from NASA, and associate professor Dr. Gregory D. Earle’s study of winds
in the ionosphere, another NASA project.

The Hanson Center for Space Sciences is named in honor
of William B. Hanson, a longtime professor and director of the center who died in 1994.

About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart
of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor,
enrolls more than 13,000 students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront
of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment
of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please
visit the university’s Web site at http://www.utdallas.edu.