[X] My Assistant

[karolp]

Rumour has it that although the Viking Orbiters are not being tracked anymore as they are silent since early 1980s, one of them has actually been spotted by Spirit. Any info on that?

Also, I wonder how many orbiters from the early era of Mars exploration are still around... Have any of them impacted Mars upon orbital decay? Is Mariner 9 still around? And how about the Russian orbiters?

Regards,

Karol P.
Poland

[ljk4-1]

Mariner 9 and the Viking orbiters were deliberately placed in orbits
around Mars where they would remain in space for at least fifty
years to kill off any stray microbes that might have hitched a ride
to avoid contaminating the planet when they do finally crash on it.

Maybe, just maybe, a future expedition could recover them for
study and exhibition, thus avoiding their touching the Red Planet
at all. Unless they are placed on Mars.

Can't say what the status or contamination protocols are for the
Soviet orbiters or the newest crop of similar vehicles.

BTW, is this the image you are referring to (scroll down 2/3 of the way):

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20040311a.html

From the accompanying text:

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a... Spacecraft?

Observing the sky with the green filter of it panoramic camera, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit came across a surprise: a streak across the sky. The streak, seen in the middle of this mosaic of images taken by the navigation and panoramic cameras, was probably the brightest object in the sky at the time. Scientists theorize that the mystery line could be either a meteorite or one of seven out-of-commission spacecraft still orbiting Mars. Because the object appeared to move 4 degrees of an arc in 15 seconds it is probably not the Russian probes Mars 2, Mars 3, Mars 5, or Phobos 2; or the American probes Mariner 9 or Viking 1. That leaves Viking 2, which has a polar orbit that would fit with the north-south orientation of the streak. In addition, only Viking 1 and 2 were left in orbits that could produce motion as fast as that seen by Spirit. Said Mark Lemmon, a rover team member from Texas A&M University, Texas, "Is this the first image of a meteor on Mars, or an image of a spacecraft sent from another world during the dawn of our robotic space exploration program? We may never know, but we are still looking for clues."

[karolp]

Thanks a lot, that answered the second question that bothered me for some time, namely how many orbiters are left up there. Phobos 2 is in orbit around Mars, so I guess Phobos 1 did not make it and simply flew by the Red Planet. But how come Phobos 2 did not send any data if it DID succeed in achieving the intended orbit?

[tedstryk]

Thanks a lot, that answered the second question that bothered me for some time, namely how many orbiters are left up there. Phobos 2 is in orbit around Mars, so I guess Phobos 1 did not make it and simply flew by the Red Planet. But how come Phobos 2 did not send any data if it DID succeed in achieving the intended orbit?

It did...Here is a link to some of its images that I worked on.

http://pages.preferred.com/%7Etedstryk/phobos2.html

It also returned some interesting results from its other instruments.

[karolp]

I am impressed! Not only with the colour Phobos imagery, but the whole site as well. Some of the Soviet images from Venera and Luna landers were published in Polish books. A friend of mine also enjoys playing with planetary imagery. He has also made an animation of the first triple asteroid - Sylvia, based on a scientifically accurate shape model:

http://republika.pl/moonlets/animacje.html

Perhaps you would enjoy his planetary moons website as well (all translated nicely into English):

http://republika.pl/ksiezyce/

He is experimetning with maps of the larger moons, like this one:

http://republika.pl/ksiezyce/neptune/triton_en.html

(you need to click on the image to open a popup, then "activate" rotation and rotate using any key)

And, he has made rotating maps for many other moons, all of which are accessible from this huge table:

http://republika.pl/ksiezyce/table_en.html#Table

The ones with rotating maps have a tiny blue ball next to their names.

[tedstryk]

Perhaps you would enjoy his planetary moons website as well (all translated nicely into English):

He has some really cool stuff!