HiRISE and Mars Polar Lander Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Looking at the images of the Spirit/Opportunity landing site, it seems many of the features such as tracks and rocket blast markings have faded considerably often to the point of being invisible in the nearly three years since landing.

This had me thinking about the MGS images taken in the hope of finding MPL. Initially it was reported that MGS had spotted the lander, one image had a white spot/streak interpreted as the parachute and a dark patch with a spot in the centre not too far off, taken to be the blast zone of the rockets with the lander in the centre.

However another image taken 5 years later seemed to discount this theory - the features had faded or changed significantly. BUT, seeing how much the rover sites have changed in an even shorter time, wouldn't the same happen to the MPL site in 5 years - perhaps to an even greater degree with the more extreme seasonal changes at that location. Also, the latest HiRISE images show just how difficult it has been to spot the landers on the surface with MGS, the Viking sites in particular.

I hope HiRISE takes another look at this spot.

Mars Polar Lander NOT Found, MSSS article:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/10/17/

[djellison]

Oh - I agree with that point, we don't know if the parachute deployed. However, if it did, it's going to be very big, very bright and very obvious indeed. You would find it easily with HiRISE. There wont be an 'is that the parachute' sort of moment - it'll be 'that IS the parachute'. I was saying, in response to 'unless the parachute landed on top of it' that there's no way the parachute would be a not-obvious object.

If the situation arises when we've got the full ellipse in HiRISE and there's no Parachute and backshell, then the failure mode has to be backed up to between cruise stage sep, and chute deployment. i.e. the entry process.

Doug