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NASA losing hope of finding Mars probe
AP on Yahoo ^ | 11/21/06 | Seth Borenstein - ap

Posted on 11/21/2006 12:40:10 PM PST by NormsRevenge

WASHINGTON - NASA's best effort to find a missing Mars space probe have failed, scientists said Tuesday as they began to lose hope for the 10-year-old planet-mapping workhorse.

After more than two weeks of silence from the Mars Global Surveyor, NASA will make other tries to locate it, but scientists were pessimistic.

"We may have lost a dear old friend and teacher," Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program said in a news conference.

The $154 million surveyor, which was supposed to last only two years but continued sending data for almost a decade, is the oldest of six different active space probes on or circling the red planet.

Among its accomplishments are more than 240,000 pictures of Mars, offering the best big-picture view of the planet. Meyer credited the probe with proving that Mars once had water.

"Every good thing comes to an end at some point," said Arizona State University scientist Phil Christensen. "It certainly in my mind greatly exceeded our wildest expectations of what to hope for. It revolutionized what we were thinking about Mars."

On Monday night, NASA had hoped to catch a glimpse of the surveyor from the camera on the new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. But the orbiter failed to spot it.

Now NASA will try an even less likely search effort. Engineers will send a signal to the silent spacecraft, asking it to turn on a beacon on one of the two Mars rovers below. If the rover beacon turns on, NASA could figure out where the lost Mars Surveyor is, said project manager Tom Thorpe.

"While we have not exhausted everything we can do ... we believe the prospect for recovery of MGS is not looking very good at all," said Fuk Li, Mars program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which controls the probe. "We're still holding out some hope."

NASA will keep trying small-scale communications efforts. Experts believe the surveyor, which lost contact Nov. 2, probably developed a problem with a device that moves solar panels causing it to lose communication.

The entire Mars Global Surveyor program cost $247 million, including launch expenses and a decade of in-flight operations. NASA had just approved a two-year mission extension for $6 million a year.

Launched on Nov. 7, 1996, the probe gave scientists the best topographic map of any planet in the solar system, said Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres, who didn't have an instrument on board the probe but was part of NASA's scientific review team.

The probe gave Earth its first detailed views of massive dust storms and gullies. It also revealed a new mystery about Mars: It once had a magnetic field.

The low-cost probe rose "from the ashes" of a dramatic Mars failure, Squyres said. In 1993, the $813 million Mars Observer disappeared just before getting to the planet. Most of that probe's instruments were built again and included on the Mars Global Surveyor.

Christensen called the global surveyor "a workhorse" because of its numerous and diverse scientific instruments.

"It really has opened up new vistas of Mars that we hadn't the foggiest notion of," said Arizona State University geologist Ron Greeley.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: globalsurveyor; ibuj; lostmarslander; lostmarsprobe; mars; nasa; probe
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A computer design downloaded from the internet of the Mars Global Surveyor, is shown in this Jan. 29, 1999 file photo. NASA's best effort to find the missing probe failed Monday night, as scientists at the space agency began to lose hope for the 10-year-old planet-mapping workhorse, which has been silent for more than two weeks. The spacecraft was designed to return detailed photographs of features on Mars: it has beamed back more than 240,000 over t he last decade. (AP Photo/JPL NASA)


1 posted on 11/21/2006 12:40:10 PM PST by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge

On the Net:

Mars Global Surveyor home page: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/


2 posted on 11/21/2006 12:40:30 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... Cornyn / Kyl in '08)
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To: NormsRevenge

This image released by NASA shows gullies eroded into the wall of a meteor impact crater in Noachis Terra from the Mars Global Surveyor, MGS, Mars Orbiter Camera, MOC, September 28, 1999. After more than two weeks of silence from the 10-year-old Mars Global Surveyor, scientists began to sound resigned Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006. NASA's best effort to find a missing Mars space probe failed Monday night, and though scientists at the space agency began to lose hope, they said they will try again. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems)


3 posted on 11/21/2006 12:41:11 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... Cornyn / Kyl in '08)
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To: NormsRevenge
a Martian version of the Great Lakes?

An area on Mars discovered by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor shows what is believed to be the inverted floor of a former meandering stream, in an undated image. NASA is running out of options for fixing the Glolbal Surveyor, officials said on Monday. (NASA/Handout/Reuters)

4 posted on 11/21/2006 12:42:10 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... Cornyn / Kyl in '08)
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To: NormsRevenge
The $154 million surveyor, which was supposed to last only two years but continued sending data for almost a decade

I'd say the taxpayers got their money's worth...

5 posted on 11/21/2006 12:43:28 PM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: NormsRevenge
One of it's most widely viewed images:

1976 Viking photo of the Face on Mars and 2001 Global Surveyor photo of the same Face.

6 posted on 11/21/2006 12:45:06 PM PST by Yo-Yo (USAF, TAC, 12th AF, 366 TFW, 366 MG, 366 CRS, Mtn Home AFB, 1978-81)
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To: NormsRevenge

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Two annular (i.e., somewhat circular) clouds are seen in the upper left corner of this mosaic of MOC wide angle camera daily global mapping images. To the right of the picture's center is the martian north polar cap. The image has a scale of about 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) per pixel. Annular clouds are common in mid-northern summer in the north polar region, and may result from eddy currents in the lower atmosphere. The appearance of such clouds happens every year; this year they came like clockwork within a two-week forecasted period, based on the previous 4 martian years of experience gained from MGS MOC daily global imaging.


Orbiter Update


7 posted on 11/21/2006 12:45:49 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... Cornyn / Kyl in '08)
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To: NormsRevenge

Let me be the first to say it: Did they look in Uranus?


8 posted on 11/21/2006 12:46:34 PM PST by Rummyfan (Iraq: Give therapeutic violence a chance!)
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To: NormsRevenge
Steve Squyres figures prominently in this NOVA program about the development of the Spirit / Opportunity rovers, now roaming on Mars.
9 posted on 11/21/2006 12:49:23 PM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Sad news but it looks like they got their money's worth!


10 posted on 11/21/2006 12:50:24 PM PST by FourtySeven (47)
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To: NormsRevenge

This is what my hard-earned tax dollars are being wasted on? I want it to go to build a 700-mile useless fence next to Mexico.


11 posted on 11/21/2006 12:51:34 PM PST by LdSentinal
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To: NormsRevenge

No, Congresswoman Jackson-Lee, it is NOT next to the flagpole!


12 posted on 11/21/2006 12:52:08 PM PST by exit82 (Clinton didn't try. He just failed.)
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To: LdSentinal

$175 million? That's about $0.63 per person in America back in 1999. I got MY money's worth (I think).


13 posted on 11/21/2006 12:53:28 PM PST by Portnoy (Fahrenheit 451...Today's Temperature is hotter than you think...)
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To: Rummyfan
"Let me be the first to say it: Did they look in Uranus?"

- I believe that Perky Katie is pushing for a special on the view of Uranus. She's been coming into work for the past week without underwear in anticipation.
14 posted on 11/21/2006 12:54:40 PM PST by finnigan2
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To: NormsRevenge
which was supposed to last only two years but continued sending data for almost a decade

500% beyond it's design life is pretty damn good performance in my book.

15 posted on 11/21/2006 12:57:05 PM PST by The_Victor (If all I want is a warm feeling, I should just wet my pants.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Money better spent than on the STS that cost us the SCSC.

IIRC Spirit and Opportunity had 90 day expected lifetimes. Now at three years?

Either we are equal or we are not. Good people should be armed where they will, with wits and guns. NRA KMA


16 posted on 11/21/2006 1:53:37 PM PST by dhuffman@awod.com (The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Something almost nobody wants to hear, "We lost the probe."


17 posted on 11/21/2006 2:06:12 PM PST by tal hajus
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To: NormsRevenge
This immage, sent by the Mars Global Surveyor after it was safely guided to the surface before it suddenly ended transmission, has been supressed from public scrutiny:


18 posted on 11/21/2006 2:10:22 PM PST by frithguild (The Freepers moved as a group, like a school of sharks sweeping toward an unaware and unarmed victim)
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To: NormsRevenge
Don't know if this link was posted

hiroc

It is the hi-res images of Mars from the new orbiter. They will be flooding us with hi-res.

19 posted on 12/02/2006 4:20:34 PM PST by RightWhale (RTRA DLQS GSCW)
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To: KevinDavis; SunkenCiv
Ping worthy?

New Mars images beginning to flood over the Internet

Details visible in the HiRISE image of Opportunity's landing site show the parachute lying on the Martian surface, Opportunity's heat shield at a different location, and the lander itself on the floor of the small impact crater where the airbag came to a stop.

20 posted on 12/02/2006 4:28:48 PM PST by RightWhale (RTRA DLQS GSCW)
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