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TORONTO - Given Canadians' obsession with the weather, it seems only fitting that Canada developed the technology that may explain why the fourth rock from the sun is so cold.

NASA's latest foray into Martian territory, scheduled to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral on Aug. 3, is a robotic spacecraft called the Phoenix Mars Lander. It will dig into the frozen soil on the north pole of the planet, trying to discover if conditions are favourable to harbouring life - now or in the past.

But scientists also want to learn about weather conditions on the planet. And that's where Canadian technology comes in.

A company just northwest of Toronto has been working on Lidar, a laser radar system that can be used on Earth and in space for precise mapping and 3-D imaging.

"The Lidar system ... will shoot lasers up into the sky and measure characteristics of the Martian atmosphere, including the clouds and the dust particulates and the water vapour," said Robert Richards, director, space division of Optech Corp., from his office in Vaughn, Ont.

"And that will help us understand the weather on Mars so we can complain about it almost as much as the Canadian weather."

Lidar was also used by the Walt Disney Co. to scan ice escarpments in the Antarctic for the making of the animated film "Happy Feet."

Richards said learning about the frosty conditions on Mars, which will provide valuable information for future manned missions, may also give insight into what's happening to the Earth's climate.

"It's clear Mars was much more Earth-like in its early history," said Richards. "One of the real reasons is to understand scientifically what's happened to Mars in the past ... so we can gain insight to the dangers that face us here on Earth."

The Martian landscape, once covered by oceans, is now locked in an ice age. Richards describes it as a dry, desert planet with frozen water lurking under the ground. It has a dry, largely carbon dioxide atmosphere where global dust storms ravage the planet.

This information resulted from evidence returned from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter in 2002.

The Phoenix Mars Lander is programmed to land in the arctic area of the planet. The robotic arm will dig down into the frozen soil and ice mix to sample and analyze the Martian crust, then beam the information back to Earth.

David Spencer, the deputy project manager for Phoenix, said the trip to Mars will take about 9� months, with the spacecraft landing in the Martian arctic around the end of May. In the planet's spring and summer, Phoenix should be able to survive about 90 days.

"We're not going to last beyond 120, 150 days because the sun will be too low and the CO2 frost will be covering the north polar cap," he said from the jet propulsion lab in Pasadena, Calif. "Basically, we'll freeze over."

The Phoenix has a shorter life expectancy than the two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, that have been traversing and sending information from Mars for years. The rovers, which use sunlight to recharge their batteries, landed on the equator of the red planet where sunlight is more prevalent than at the north pole.

Currently the rovers are both still, as a dust storm on Mars has prevented sunlight from reaching them.

Assigning the Phoenix a short lifespan is the least of the potential troubles. The spacecraft has to land without incident, a problem that has put an end to many a Mars mission.

The Associated Press reported that out of 15 global attempts to land on Mars, only five spacecrafts have done it.

Still as the many missions before, Spencer said the purpose of the Phoenix is to learn more about Mars.

"Our instruments are powerful enough to determine whether there are organic materials - the building blocks of life - in these areas because they once could have harboured life," Spencer said.

In addition to Optech's Lidar, Canada will be sending much of the technology on the weather part of the mission. And some of Canada's brightest earth and atmospheric scientists will be at the receiving end of information at the University of Arizona.

Contributing to the project are scientists from three Canadian universities - York, Alberta, and Dalhousie - as well as the Geological Survey of Canada, the Finnish Meterological Institute and MDA Space Missions.

"This is the first time we have taken such a large role on a Mars mission," said Alain Berinstain, director of planetary exploration and space astronomy at the Canadian Space Agency.

"We were asked to take part in this mission," he said adding that when NASA was putting together a team to study the atmosphere on Mars, they needed people who had the best knowledge of another planet.

"We in Canada have a lot of expertise in understanding the atmosphere of Earth."

The knowledge gleaned from the Phoenix lander will allow a mission in 2020, when scientists are hoping to have the technology to allow samples to be returned to Earth.

Those samples could help pave the way for a crew to land on Mars.

"NASA right now does not have a firm date for when to send humans to Mars," he said. "I think (the first sample return from Mars in 2020) will be a precursor for sending humans to Mars.

"I sure hope that is in the next 30 years."

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with NASA and Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colo.