Mars Global Surveyor Is Likely Done

Nov. 21, 2006 — Attempts to locate an ailing Mars-orbiting spacecraft which provided the first evidence of past water on the planet's surface have been unsuccessful, dimming prospects the craft can be recovered, NASA managers said Tuesday.

"We may have lost a dear old friend and teacher," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Explorations Program at NASA's Washington, D.C., headquarters.

NASA on Monday used its newest Mars probe to try to take a picture of the Mars Global Surveyor, which has not checked in with its ground control team in nearly three weeks. Surveyor fell silent after a problem positioning one of its solar arrays on Nov. 2.

The sister craft Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, however, found only star-filled space when it aimed its high-resolution camera where ground controllers expected to find Surveyor.

NASA plans to make one last attempt to locate the lost probe by sending commands to have it transmit a beacon signal to another Mars craft, the rover Opportunity, which is located on the planet's surface.

"While we have not exhausted everything that we can do, we believe that the prospect of recovering MGS is not looking very good at all," said Mars program manager Fuk Li, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Surveyor was the oldest of five NASA spacecraft currently working on or around Mars.

Designed to map the planet over a single Martian year, which is roughly equivalent to two years on Earth, Surveyor's mission had just been extended for a fourth, two-year term when it fell silent.

Even if Odyssey can help engineers pinpoint Surveyor's location, managers are not expecting they will be able to return the craft to useful science.

"We have not given up all hope," Li said during a teleconference call with reporters. "But we are ready to celebrate its long life and a job well done."

During its 10 years of work, Surveyor found mineral deposits that indicated water had been present on the planet's surface in the not-too-distant past, a discovery that forced scientists to rethink the planet's evolution.

Surveyor also took thousands of pictures of water-carved gullies and channels on the planet's surface, indicating areas of Mars where water once flowed freely.

"We all believe that MGS was a fantastic mission. It really has evolutionized how we look at Mars," Li said.

Even if Opportunity cannot find Surveyor's signal, NASA likely will keep one of its Deep Space Network dishes tuned in for several more weeks — just in case the probe ever decides to phone home.