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]

Even a shreded chute like those Boise MER tests would still be a fairly big target - and the backshell might, I expect, survive the impact - especially if the lander seperated before landing.

Doug

[ugordan]

Thanks, Zvezdichko and Tim for the pointers. Just for fun, here's the original place MPL was believed to have been found in 2005 (see this release), seen by HiRISE (quick'n'dirty "map projection"):


Later that year, the MSSS team got another look at the candidate site using cPROTO: http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/10/17/. It illustrates that to reasonably be able to pick up the lost lander (primarily its chute), cPROTO-like coverage would be needed across the ellipse. In other words, all is probably not lost just yet. The lack of chute detection by MGS might constrain the actual location to more chaotic terrain seen by HiRISE where the feature would not readily stand out to MGS.

BTW, is it me or are the MGS images less contrasted compared to HiRISE? Higher solar elevation in MGS images or something else?