FYI
Posted on 05/06/2005 8:59:18 AM PDT by hattend
Scientist Spots What May Be Missing Mars Polar Lander NASA Craft Vanished During a Landing Attempt on Red Planet Six Years Ago By ALICIA CHANG, AP
A NASA image may show the craft's parachute. A white dot labeled MPL a few hundred yards away could be the lander.
LOS ANGELES (May 6) - Nearly six years after NASA's Mars Polar Lander vanished during a landing attempt on the Red Planet, a scientist said he has spotted what appears to be wreckage of the spacecraft.
The observation came during a re-examination of grainy, black-and-white images taken by the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor, which searched for the probe with no success in 1999 and 2000.
''The observation of a single, small dot at the center of the disturbed location suggests that the vehicle remained more or less intact after its fall,'' wrote Michael Malin, president and chief scientist of San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, which operates the camera aboard Global Surveyor.
Malin makes his case in the July issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. A copy of his article was posted Thursday on the magazine's Web site.
Global Surveyor will take higher resolution images later this year in an attempt to confirm the missing lander's location.
''It looks intriguing,'' said Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for NASA's Mars Program. He said the images show just one possible location of the missing Polar Lander and more images are needed.
The $165 million Polar Lander was headed for touchdown near Mars' south pole on Dec. 3, 1999, when contact was lost. A NASA team concluded a rocket engine shut off prematurely, causing the spacecraft to plummet about 130 feet to almost certain destruction.
A re-examination of images of the surface of Mars taken after the Polar Lander's disappearance show a distinct white patch that could be a parachute. A few hundred meters away, scientists noted a dark area, possibly made from rocket blast marks, with a tiny white dot in the center that could be the lander.
The images pinpointing Polar Lander's possible location jibes with NASA's theory of the spacecraft's demise, Malin said.
Scientists at his firm decided to review the old Polar Lander images after last year's successful landings of the twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The rovers used a combination of rockets, parachutes and air bags to cushion their landing.
The Polar Lander used a similar system during its unsuccessful approach.
Its disappearance was a blow to NASA, which had lost the lander's $125 million sibling spacecraft, the Mars Climate Orbiter, three months earlier. That spacecraft apparently burned up as it was about to enter orbit.
The lander and orbiter were designed to study and analyze Mars' atmosphere and search for signs of frozen water beneath its south pole.
05/06/05 07:56EDT
FYI
Cool, maybe the photos will show the burn marks from those Martian laser cannons.
They'll lose contact with the orbiter about that time.
Ack Ack!
ping
I recall something about Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-MARS) crash-landing on Mars when her driver, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, blew the stinkin' hatch as they stopped for a Big Gulp and a Slurpie -- on The Moon!
Imagine mistaking The Moon for Mars?!? God Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-MARS) is so dumb! Everyone knows that Mars has no 7-11's!
As it was, the gravitational pull from her massive corpulence nearly took Mars out of its normal orbit--caused the biggest riot in Dallas since Oswald got shot!
(Many obscure, unfunny references...let me apologize in advance!)
I'll be waiting.
"Scientist Spots What May Be Missing Mars Polar Lander."
Couldn't be. Some in the Coast to Coast AM crowd have already decided it was snatched up by aliens?
I didn't eve know Mexico HAS an active space program.
The likely reason for the failure was that the "contact sensor" on the legs was triggered by the ejection of the heat shield, about 100 ft. above the ground. The rockets obediently shut down, and the rest is history.
That said, this is old news....
Gordo wrote in his autobio "Leap of Faith" that within weeks after the incident, NASA investigations conclusively revealed that there was, indeed, a malfunction in the hatch that caused it to blow, and that Gus was not at fault. Furthermore, when two other astronauts (John Glenn was one, IIRC) did have to blow the hatch for safety, they both had severe bruising on their hands -- something that Gus didn't have, proving to Gordo beyond doubt that Gus didn't panic and blow the hatch, as implied in "The Right Stuff" (one of my favorite movies, by the way, but which has dropped a bit in my esteem since reading "Leap of Faith").
Final proof that NASA itself was satisfied that Gus was innocent of screwing up, was that Gus was assigned to subsequent missions. Astronauts who botched things were NOT trusted with new missions.
That's what those useless systems engineers are for. :)
AP is just now getting around to reporting the story, I guess
LOL! Alas, many of the systems engineers I know are indeed useless....
Good stuff, thanks!
I'll have to read Leap of Faith, sounds like there's some dynamics that would be very interesting to find out about!
Agree with you about GWB, by the way! (saw your FR homepage -- you're a handsome dog!).
I loved both book and movie too, and always try to catch it when it comes out on the cable channels as it does occasionally.
My favorite scene in the movie is the scene with Gus and his wife in the motel after the rescue, when she lets slip her disappointment and yells "I don't want to be known as Mrs. Squirmin' Hatch-Blower!!"
I know it's just a movie, but wow, that scene is intense and you can just imagine how emasculated Gus would have felt, as his honor was being impugned. (Though if you believe the movie/book, Gus was quite the philanderer and maybe didn't desereve sympathy.)
Great book, great movie.
(And by the way, I hope you're not a guy!)
;>)
That is the usual attitude until they aren't there or make a mistake... or a crater.
"My friends and I always sort of figured that rules are for people who aren't willing to make up their own."
And yes, I am female, happily married to a very handsome dog (don't know whether to emphasize "handsome" or "dog"!), hence my expert appraisal of your pic! ;^)
That's not the real lander.
It's bait.
Like the duck decoys human hunters use.
FWIW, Nova had a piece on one of the Mars Rovers, pre-flight.
They had to open up the package for it, reason forgotten, and after it was repackaged, and maybe
on it's way to Mars, there was a concern about the explosive bolts not working for yet another forgotten reason.
Any way, somebody left the removed bolts from the first packaging in a tool box, so they were able to test
the efficacy of that batch enough to sleep a bit better for the following two years.
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