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Mars Probe Probably Lost Forever
David Shiga writes, "NASA's silent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft is likely lost forever. The space agency attempted to take a picture of the 10-year-old spacecraft using the newer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but did not detect it, either because its orbit has shifted since last contact, or because it isn't reflecting enough sunlight to be visible. NASA has now ordered its Opportunity rover to listen from the planet's surface for MGS's radio beacon. If that fails, the agency may call on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft to join the search. But MGS may already have run out of power and NASA officials are not optimistic about recovering it."
Did they check Mars? I would bet that it is probably there.
Was that the one crushed by the Decepticons? I don't think we'll be recovering it anytime soon.
...it was obviously captured by aliens.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
A pink rabbit beating a large bass drum was just spotted in the vicinity of Mars. Communications with the Mars Probe are expected to resume momentarily... ;)
"Nature bats last..."
"either because its orbit has shifted since last contact, or because it isn't reflecting enough sunlight to be visible"
So either it wasn't there or it was there but they didn't see it. I think that has to pretty safe to say they have limited the problem down considerably.
:(){
Why are humans, a plague on this planet, trying to gain dominion over the others?
If God had meant us to fly, he'd have given us rocket engines, day one.
(Yes, tongue is firmly in cheek.)
668: Neighbour of the Beast
It's probably in an unknown orbit. Chances are as our space travel technology improves and we start to colonize Mars, it will turn up someday. Either it will be detected in orbit by one of our spacecraft, or its orbit will decay and its remains will be found on the Martian surface as research and civilization there expands. It might be a few hundred years, but eventually most of what we sent there could be found.
Either that or it will appear in a future episode, with..certain...alien mutations.
Many people joke, somewhat grimly, about the casualty rate for Mars missions. In this case we have a serious lesson to draw from what is happening. Having several other probes active at the same time gives us options we otherwise would not have.
If Mars Global Surveyor had been out there all alone, mission controllers would have little choice other than waiting for it to somehow recover and renew contact on its own. Having Spirit, Opportunity, the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Express all out there at the same time, we get more chances to figure out some truly innovative way to save the troubled spacecraft.
However, if all these other efforts fail, we should seriously consider sending up a human repair crew to rescue Mars Global Surveyor. We have seen how the Hubble Space Telescope can rally public support for extra launches of the Space Shuttle. A thoughtfully run campaign to save Mars Global Surveyor could, in some small but perhaps crucial way boost public support for sending humans to Mars.
Continual probing of a heavenly body for almost 10 years? Beats my record by a long shot.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
Always remember: The Medium is the Message, and the Message is the Audience (and the message is really stupid).
Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents.
probably its software was written in java.
This is what happens when you believed the hype and put the cheaper Radio Shack Energizer Bunny batteries in your mission critical apps way back then...
NASA was trying to cut costs by using off the shelf components. Unfortunately, UPS does not deliver replacement batteries to their current location ;)
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
We own you. We now possess your land, your minerals, your precious spacecraft. You will surrender or you will die. Sycorax strong! Sycorax mighty! Sycorax rock!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Mars Anti Satellite Command (MASC) reports another successful test of the new anti-satellite interceptor.
What really got my eye was how they just 'asked' Opportunity to listen for it. That is, that those things are so dynamic in what they do and can be 'asked' to do simply amazes me.
Well, they did say please...
Aside from the general difficulty of firing government workers, nobody is going to lose their jobs over happening to be around when a mission which had gone years past its planned expiration date finally winked out of existence. At worst they'll have a few weeks of sitting around the office watching the computer screens, then they'll be reassigned to another NASA project. Not that I really think NASA engineers would be in a terrible place if the agency suddenly vanished tomorrow. After all, they're rocket scientists. I'm sure they can work something out. (Yeah, I know, NASA also employs janitors and cafeteria workers and techs. So does the rest of the world. You don't need to have anything orbiting a celestial body to pay someone to move a broom around.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I personally think it's all gone downhill since that whole silly "multicellular" craze. Phffft.
Alternatively, maybe it just had a Sony battery... Have any flashes of light or smoke been spotted above Mars recently ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Luckily one of the engineers realised that if Opportunity was to bounce an inverse-polarity tachyon beam through the fifth phase of a quantum singularity, it might be possible to convert Opportunity's deflector dish into a scanning-tunnelling pulse wave detector.
From the Associated Pres news:
"We have gathered information from inside NASA, that during the last minutes of contacts the Mars Global Surveyor sent out an encrypted message. After a grueling three hours trying to decrypt the message, top scientists at NASA was startled to see what appears to be a message from semi-intelligent beings. It reads 'How are you gentlemen!! All your base are belong to us.' Then the MGS went silent.
Governments of the United States and Western Europe have moved to take of every zig. Although it is widely believed that we have no chance to survive make our time, the scientists insist that we must indeed move zig.
God help us