Mysterious Disappearance
The long-operating Mars Global Surveyor cannot be located any longer. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have not been able to make the craft respond to any commands. The probe has operated long past its original design life.
The space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena lost contact with the probe for two days last week, then received a weak carrier signal with no data on Sunday. Since then, Surveyor has not confirmed receiving a command to point one of its transmitters to Earth, project manager Tom Thorpe said.
The Global Surveyor was launched on Nov. 7, 1996, to systematically map Mars while orbiting the Red Planet. It has operated longer than the other Martian exploration craft.
Carrying a powerful camera that has returned thousands of images, the spacecraft has discovered features suggesting water once flowed on the desert world, and it has looked at potential landing sites for future exploration.
Surveyor is one of four spacecraft orbiting Mars. Its companions include NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey, and the European Space Agency's Mars Express. On the surface, the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity, continue operating.
Surveyor was originally launched as a $247 million mission to last for nearly two years. The mission has received extensions since then.
In an effort to help out the folks at JPL, we have looked into the disappearance of the probe. Fortunately, we were able to obtain this absolutely genuine photograph of what actually happened from some guy who used to do a lot of work for Reuters. Mystery solved!
(Unbutchered photo Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech - they have a bunch of nice images there)
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Lost In Space — Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 3:48 pm
