Mars Polar Lander Lost Again

IZ Reloaded writes "The Mars Global Surveyor during one of its latest scans of the area where the Mars Polar Lander was originally spotted, discovers that the spacecraft is no longer there! Space.com reports, "We conclude that our interpretation of these features was in error. This is not the location of the Mars Polar Lander. Because the landing uncertainty ellipse is so much larger than our images, and we do not have another candidate to which to target...we cannot continue to hunt for the lander," the MSSS site explains."

Comments

dust, frost?

[Use Psychology]

perhaps the lander could have been covered by dust, or c02 frost -- therefore eliminating the weak detection seen before?

List of Mars Efforts

[EuropeanGuy]

List of Mars Efforts, courtesy of Wikipedia

Items with bullets represent full or partial failures.

* 1960 -- Marsnik 1
* 1960 -- Marsnik 2
* 1962 -- Sputnik 29
* 1962 -- Mars 1
* 1962 -- Sputnik 31
* 1964 -- Mariner 3
1964 -- Mariner 4
* 1964 -- Zond 2
* 1965 -- Zond 3
1969 -- Mariner 6
1969 -- Mariner 7
* 1969 -- Mars 1969A
* 1969 -- Mars 1969B
* 1971 -- Mariner 8
* 1971 -- Cosmos 419
* 1971 -- Mars 2
1971 -- Mars 3
1971 -- Mariner 9
* 1973 -- Mars 4
* 1973 -- Mars 5
* 1973 -- Mars 6
* 1973 -- Mars 7
1975 -- Viking 1
1975 -- Viking 2
* 1988 -- Phobos 1
* 1988 -- Phobos 2
* 1992 -- Mars Observer
1996 -- Mars Global Surveyor
* 1996 -- Mars 96
1996 -- Mars Pathfinder
* 1998 -- Nozomi (Planet-B)
* 1998 -- Mars Climate Orbiter
* 1998 -- Mars Polar Lander
* 1998 -- Deep Space 2 (part of Mars Polar Lander spacecraft)
2001 -- Mars Odyssey
2003 -- Mars Exploration Rovers
* 2003 -- Mars Express

Re:List of Mars Efforts

[thermopile]

There's a much better and much funnier synopsis of Mars attempts and failures here, as well as a record of a few other planets.

Overall, we're really only about 33% successful at it. Space Travel is Not Easy.