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Mars Polar Lander Found?

MacSA said:
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/050502_mpl_search.html

Word is that the MSSS team is hot on the trail of the missing Mars Polar Lander. Insiders suggest that MGS in cPROTO mode is to be trained on a suspected Mars spot next month.
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Interesting stuff - it would be nice if they could find it. But looking at the image of the Spirit rover, I don't think they'll be able to assess much. Now if they could send Spirit to repair the other craft, that would be cool...

Yes, I know it's not equipped to do it, but still.
 
emw said:
Interesting stuff - it would be nice if they could find it. But looking at the image of the Spirit rover, I don't think they'll be able to assess much. Now if they could send Spirit to repair the other craft, that would be cool...

Yes, I know it's not equipped to do it, but still.
Click to expand...

LOL, the only thing that Spirit could do would be to drill into it and take microscopic pictures to see what it is made of, but we already know that. :D

Anyway, someday astronauts will probably go check it out in person - by the time I'm in a nursing home we'll have found out why it didn't land properly. ;) :p :rolleyes:
 
emw said:
But looking at the image of the Spirit rover, I don't think they'll be able to assess much.
Click to expand...

I think they spent too long looking at the rover and missed something much more obvious.

Click on the thumbnail to see the larger version.
 

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Pretty amazing - I'm surprised you're the first one to see it, but maybe it's just because you pointed it out that it seems so obvious. Maybe we should forward this back to those know-it-alls at NASA. :D
 
the next Mars Oribter, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is scheduled for launch on August 10th this year. It has a camera with the highest resolution ever flown to another planet. It will also keep a look out for the various landers that have reached mars over the years:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/spotlight/20050412.html

MRO_hirise.jpg
 
pimentoLoaf said:
We need a manned repair mission to the roving thing, and we could reconfigure it to drive to the polar thing and repair it automatically. :p
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We could do a lot more than the Polar Lander if we had people there, so it wouldn't be worth it to fix the thing. Besides, if it cut out its landing engine, there might be a few pieces to put together, but most likely its a crater.... :p

D
 
It would be great if NASA was able to find the Mars Polar Lander. Knowing its condition should be helpful to future missions.
 
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