Slashdot Mirror


NASA Satellite Looks For Response From Dead Mars Craft

coondoggie writes "NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter will next week make a number of passes over the presumed dead Phoenix Mars Lander on the surface of the planet and listen for what the space agency called possible, though improbable, radio transmissions. Odyssey will pass over the Phoenix landing site about 10 times this month and two longer listening tries in February and March trying to determine if the craft survived Martian winter and try to lock onto a signal and gain information about the lander’s status."

5 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Pun! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    No.

  2. Re:Love the space program by lopgok · · Score: 2, Informative

    I am a tiny bit off on the timeline. The motto was 'Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970'. See http://www.islandone.org/Propulsion/ProjectOrion.html

  3. Re:And so it goes by sznupi · · Score: 2, Informative

    Catastrophic failures during descent didn't really reach Mars...

    The shortest lived mission that touched down was the very first lander - Soviet Mars 3 probe. Stopped transmitting after around 20 seconds (but the data that were sent and external observation suggest it had the misfortune of landing in extreme dust storm)

    Phoenix Mars Lander is no failure. It was known it will cease operations quickly (might even have been under CO2 icecap during winter)

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  4. Re:Love the space program by wcrowe · · Score: 2, Informative

    Good point. Another example: the military still uses the Browning .50 caliber machine gun, which has changed little since it first went into service in the 1920's.

    --
    Proverbs 21:19
  5. Re:Love the space program by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 2, Informative

    Vietnam you mean, no C-130s were built during Korea.