-Caveat Lector- Occam's razor: Did the Big Hole or ET cause the disappearance of the Mars Lander? Alfred ===== http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=56745 > Did Mars Lander fall in the Big Hole? > > Friday, 7 January 2000 15:19 (ET) > > Subject: Did Mars Lander fall in the Big Hole? > Date: Friday, January 07, 2000 3:21:46 PM EST > Message-ID: > > Did Mars Lander fall in the Big Hole? > By DEE ANN DIVIS > WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- NASA's missing Mars Polar Lander could have > tumbled down the steep sides of a crater, said a NASA official, but it was > unlikely and still too early to tell for sure. > Richard Zureck, Mars Polar Lander (MPL) Project Scientist told reporters > Thursday that the crater in question, dubbed the Big Hole by NASA, was on > the edge of the targeted landing area. That crater, however, was only a part > of the total 10 percent of the target area that had steep enough terrain to > cause the mission to fail. > Zureck was responding to press reports saying that the likely reason the > Lander was lost was that it landed on the steep slopes. A report in > Thursday's Denver Post quoted an unnamed member of the Lockheed Martin team > working on the mission as saying that the landing site had become the "No. 1 > cause of why we haven't heard from MPL with most people associated with the > program." > When NASA was selecting the landing site, he said, it tried to avoid places > where the surface slope was greater than 10 degrees. > "We knew about this deep valley and the crater (within it) right from the > beginning of our site selection," said Zurek. "The area covered by [such] > slopes is less than 10 percent of the total area when the Lander might have > set down." Zurek confirmed that the crater walls had a slope of up to 20 > degrees. > Zureck said that NASA had considered making a final course correction to > the Lander a few days before touch down because it was in fact going to land > closer to the valley than planned. The correction would have carried the > spacecraft further south, however, and possibly into other potentially rough > terrain. NASA decided, therefore, not to tweak the spacecraft's path any > further > Admitting that some at NASA were annoyed at the press coverage, Dr. Noel > Hinners, Vice President of Lockheed Martin Astronautics, said that the > assertion reported in the Post was irresponsible. The team was now doing the > analysis to determine the most likely place that the Lander would have > landed. > "As we get more of that data in we will be better able to tell > statistically what's the chance we came down by a crater or a high slope. To > date, we don't have a definitive answer to where we came down," he said, "we > may never have that....We just don't know." > Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, Co is the industrial partner of the > Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which is managing the Mars Polar Lander > mission. Contact with the Mars Polar Lander (MPL), and the two Deep Space 2 > surface probes piggybacking on the spacecraft, was lost December 3 as the > mission began its rendezvous with the red planet. > The MPL team is still attempting to reestablish communications with the > Lander. They will try to contact the Lander at different times of day over > the next week or two in case the spacecraft's internal clock has gotten out > of synch. > NASA is trying to catch a glimpse of the Lander's parachute with the camera > on the Mars Global Surveyor now in orbit above the planet. The Lander itself > is too small to be seen by the camera. > That search area is large, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) long by several > kilometers wide. Unfortunately, NASA has almost no data on the Martian winds > and must guess broadly where the spacecraft landed. The Mars Climate > Orbiter, which was lost in November, could have provided information to help > improve the estimates of the wind speeds. The Orbiter was lost when English > units were incorrectly translated into metric units in a portion of the > ground-base navigation software. > The search area for the Lander has been mapped completely once so far but > there are gaps in the pictures caused by a loss of data at the Deep Space > Network stations. A second set of images will be taken to fill in the gaps > and expand the search area. > NASA has not ruled out any causes for the mission failure said Zureck and > "It could be the surface, it could be the flight systems and all the things > [the spacecraft] had to do successfully to land on the planet." He said > that there was no data so far that caused him to lean toward a problem on > the surface or a mishap during approach. > Unless a reason for the failure can be found soon, the Mars missions > planned for 2001 may have to be delayed to allow for extra tests. > Zurek said that if they are not able to find the parachute they will have > to assume that last month's failure was caused by something in the > spacecraft's systems. The Mars 2001 Lander is based on essentially on the > same lander design as the missing spacecraft and additional review would be > required. The Mars Surveyor 2001 is scheduled to launch March 30, 2001. The > Lander, which will also carry another Mars Rover, is due to launch 10 days > later. Lockheed Martin builds both spacecraft. > "Most of us are sort of resigned to the fact that we have lost the Mars > Polar Lander," said Zurek. We are looking downstream trying to make sure we > learn the right lessons here and do the right things to increase the chances > for success for the other missions." > NASA should know by the end of February whether they would be able to keep > to the current 2001 launch schedule. > > -- > Copyright 2000 by United Press International. > All rights reserved. > -- ===== DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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