NASA Images Old Mars Landers

Iron Sun writes "Scientists have used the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter to capture images of what they think are the Viking 1 and Mars Pathfinder craft sitting on the surface of Mars. I'll have to take their word they are the indistinct blobs in question. The probes were supposedly just below the resolution of Surveyor, but they used a new trick developed last year to squeeze more detail out of the camera. The next target will, of course, be the Spirit rover."

Comments

Re:"We can find it if we know where it is!"

[elendel]

Uh, this is the same resolution as the currenct MSG. From the article:

"Normally it can resolve features only down to about 3 feet (1 meter) per pixel, not good enough to discern a typical landing craft from its surroundings."

They got the additional resolution needed to see the landers by using a funkey trick, something about pitching the spacecraft at a faster speed... not very well explained in the article. But it gives a single-dimension resolution of ~20 inches/pixel.

The MSG actually only has a resolution of 1.5 meters/pixel, if the information here is correct. So The Mars Recon Orbiter camera will be a bit of an improvement, if they use the same resolution-enhancing trick. But it will only make the dot a little bigger... I doubt it will be able to confirm that the dot actually is a lander. Although, the HiRISE will have a 1-2 ft/pixel resolution at near-infrared. This could be be enough to almost make out something...

Re:When will we send higher-resolution cameras?

[Gakster2001]

"In 2005, NASA plans to launch a powerful scientific orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This mission will focus on analyzing the surface at new scales .... For example, the Reconnaissance Orbiter will measure thousands of Martian landscapes at 20- to 30-centimeter (8- to 12-inch) resolution, good enough to observe rocks the size of beach balls." If I read that correctly, this will have tremendous optics. Read it here