http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1509_1.asp

In December 1999 NASA's Mars Polar Lander (MPL) was supposed to touch down near the red planet's south pole. But shortly after it entered the Martian atmosphere, the spacecraft disappeared without a trace. Only now, 5½ years later, do scientists think they may have finally located the lander's wreckage and confirmed what went wrong with the mission. The full report, by planetary scientist Michael C. Malin (Malin Space Science Systems), appears in the July 2005 issue of Sky & Telescope, now in press.

More from MSSS:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/05/05/index.html

Props to Phil Stooke! Good work, man! And Tim Parker, too, naturally, but since he doesn't post here... :@)

The news story on this at spaceref.com stated that the candidate white dot would indicate that the lander reached the surface "relatively intact" after a 40 meter drop. I wonder what the definition of "relatively" would be in this case? Obviously enough damage would have been done to disable, at the least, the communications ability.

...John...

My study of Viking 2's location, used to help guide the MOC search, was reported in this 2004 abstract:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/1074.pdf

and this was a similar study for Lunokhod 1, from this year's lunar and planetary science conference:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1194.pdf

Phil

Great detective work Phil


The MSSS piece on Polar lander states that a fall of 40m on Mars is not the same as a 40m fall on Earth - more like falling from 40 feet, which I guess is about 13m. It might have fallen over on to it's side when it hit the surface... I suppose it's conceivable that it reamined functional to some degree. What's interesting about that is that JPL did restart the search after a more thorough analysis of the signals they received while searching. They did find something in them that was interesting enough for them to re-start the search. Maybe MPL did manage to send out a VERY weak signal of some kind before dying.

Phil:

Excellent work!

here's some more on Viking (or was this already posted somewhere else?)

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/05/05/index.html

V1 + Pathfinder to match...

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/05/09/

Excellent work with MOC - some concrete targets for HiRISE.

I'm almost as excited by HiRISE as I was before MER arrived - it's that difference I guess between views 'from orbit' which MOC generates - and the views that HiRise will generate which are more like from a helecopter.

Phil - you might be able to shed light on this one - I've looked and looked - but no sign in any MOC images of the MPF backshell+chute or heatshield. The backshell might/probably was spotted in Super Res imagery in the direction of Big Crater but I see nothing that way in MOC imagery.

Also - using the EDL accelerometer data - they generated a route map for MERA and MERB that showed from retro fire to their final resting place - the direction travelled by the airbagged-lander.

I never saw anything like that for MPF. I guess if would have been near Big Crater - then rolling to the final resting place from there - theres some airbag scuffs in that direction - nothing as clear as those on meridiani or sleepy hollow however. recently I stumbled across the accel. data for MPF - (I dropped it into excel and it had the EDL graph with bounces at the end - vey nice) but I dont have any of the 1337 h4x0r programming skills to turn that edl data into a 3d path.

What I find a very exciting prospect for HiRise is that MPF should be easily resolveable, each solar panel being about 4 or 5 pixels in size - and easily visible in colour.

BUT

Maybe Sojourner will be visible as well It's just at the resolving power of HiRise and if the pixels fall just right - it's solar panel may make enough contribution to one pixel of an image to make it stand out.

Doug

Color should also help identify manmade objects

a long time ago I did an image that tried to show the resolving power of features using 3ds max. I showed different resolutions, different local times, different sized objects

but colour was the biggest help of all in identifying 'stuff'

Doug

I have thought about looking for the other MPF hardware - as you say, they did think they found the heatshield and backshell in lander images. But I haven't done it yet - wait for the Moon book to be out of the way and then I'll give it a try. Regarding Sojourner, if it's only one pixel across it will not be easy to confirm its identity! Especially since the poor little thing may have been wondering round trying to find its Mom.

Phil

Ahh - but a dusty solar panel pixel, and a dusty mars soil pixel are very different when false-coloured from two wavelengths

doug

True... but if it's so small the pixel may not sample it cleanly. Of course you said it would have to fall cleanly in a pixel. But on the other hand, if it's as dusty as Spirit was before the "cleaning event", it's that much harder again. Nobody would be happier than me if it could be seen.

I just looked at the PROTO image of the MPF site - it doesn't extend far enough south to cover the backshell. And so far we don't have cPROTO, at least not released. Even Pathfinder itself is unremarkable - as the MSSS release showed just the other day. If you didn't know it WAS the lander the photo certainly wouldn't confirm it.

Interested folks might like to look at Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets - Vol. 104, No. E4, April 25 1999, the MPF special issue.

Assuming a decade (or three) of Martian dust storms doesn't turn the landers & their other paraphrenalia the same shade of reddish brown as much of the rest of Mars.

http://www.agu.org/journals/je/je9904/je104_4.html

Doug

No MPF!

Mars Polar Lander NOT Found

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/10/17/