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Mars Probe Probably Lost Forever

Posted by kdawson on Tue Nov 21, 2006 09:57 PM
from the alas-poor-MGS dept.
Mars NASA Space Science
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."
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[+] NASA Struggles To Contact Lost Mars Probe 125 comments
David Shiga writes "Just when NASA was about to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft, the probe suddenly lost contact with Earth, New Scientist Space reports. NASA last heard from the MGS probe on November 5, two days before the 10th anniversary of its launch from Earth. The MGS team is not sure yet what the problem is, but a micrometeorite could have jolted the spacecraft's main antenna out of alignment with Earth, or it might have a solar array problem and too little power to talk to Earth as a result. If they can't re-establish communication this week, NASA may try to diagnose the problem by taking pictures of MGS with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The two spacecraft come within about 100 kilometers of each other several times each week."
[+] Software Error Likely Killed MGS Spacecraft 199 comments
Aglassis writes "NASA investigators have determined that a software update performed in June of 2006 may have doomed the 10-year-old spacecraft. Apparently the software error caused the solar arrays to drive against a mechanical stop which then forced the spacecraft into safe mode. Unfortunately, after that the spacecraft's radiator was pointed at the sun which overheated the battery and destroyed it. Contact was lost with the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in November 2006. NASA will form an internal review board to determine formally the cause of the loss of the spacecraft and what remedial actions are needed for future missions."
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  • Missing? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 21 2006, @09:59PM (#16944344)
    Did they check Mars? I would bet that it is probably there.

  • Transformers (Score:4, Funny)

    by firehawk2k (310855) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @09:59PM (#16944352)
    Was that the one crushed by the Decepticons? I don't think we'll be recovering it anytime soon.

  • May I be the first to say.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mhore (582354) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:00PM (#16944356)
    ...it was obviously captured by aliens.

  • It was a good run... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hedgemage (934558) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:04PM (#16944398)
    You got to admit, we've been having some fantastic luck with some of the recent Mars missions. Unfortunately, the luck has either been fantasticly good or fantasticly bad.
    We just have to keep reminding ourselves that sending something millions of miles through space to a speck of rock and have it function so well for so long is an amazing achievement in and of itsself.

    • Re:It was a good run... (Score:5, Informative)

      by jfruhlinger (470035) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:44PM (#16944748) Homepage
      The Global Surveyor probe completed its primary mission in 2001 and was in an "extended mission" phase. While its extended mission was to last until 2008, it was already essentially on bonus time. This is definitely still in the good luck category.

      • Re:It was a good run... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dsci (658278) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:35PM (#16945122) Homepage
        This is definitely still in the good luck category.

        Exactly. People can say what they want about NASA | JPL, but the bottom line is they put up some good stuff much of the time. 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.

        Who knew years ago when Opportunity (also past expected mission life, right?) was designed that it would be on-the-fly tasked to listen for another spacecraft's signal. That it was designed in this way is a testament to well planned engineering. IMO.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by O.W.M (884392)
          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...

        • Who knew years ago when Opportunity (also past expected mission life, right?) was designed that it would be on-the-fly tasked to listen for another spacecraft's signal. That it was designed in this way is a testament to well planned engineering. IMO.

          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

    • Re:It was a good run... (Score:5, Informative)

      by quanticle (843097) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:47PM (#16944774) Homepage

      Actually, the Mars Global Surveyor finished its mission, and had long outlasted its original mission scope when the failure occurred. While unfortunate, this failure isn't wholly unanticipated as the craft was "out of warranty" as it were.

    • Re:It was a good run... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by be-fan (61476) on Wednesday November 22 2006, @01:01AM (#16945726)
      What I'm incredibly impressed over is the fact that they're mobilizing other space craft in the area to look for the missing probe. The fact that NASA can get spacecraft designed for complete autonomy in extreme environments, and designed years apart by different groups at that, to cooperate with each other all while tens of millions of miles from the closest human, well, that's a pretty impressive bit of engineering.

  • This just in... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ectotherm (842918) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:05PM (#16944416)
    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... ;)

  • Any other options? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bob54321 (911744) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:11PM (#16944464)
    "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.

  • Plague (Score:4, Funny)

    by PHAEDRU5 (213667) <instascreed&gmail,com> on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:13PM (#16944478) Homepage
    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.)

  • Not a bad run (Score:5, Funny)

    by Schemat1c (464768) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:25PM (#16944618) Homepage
    Continual probing of a heavenly body for almost 10 years? Beats my record by a long shot.

  • It's not about LUCK... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by posterlogo (943853) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:36PM (#16944698)
    SO many posts here about the curse of Mars or whatever, but you have to remember Surveyer was on the 10th year of its 2 year mission!! It exceeded its specs and performed beautifully. It's sad to lose an orbiter, but at this point, it shouldn't be considered a failed mission.

  • Time to update... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DangerTenor (104151) <pmhesse2 AT geminisecurity DOT com> on Tuesday November 21 2006, @10:49PM (#16944784) Homepage
    It might be time to update the Mars Scorecard [anl.gov].... although we got some good work out of the MGS, it might be time to mark this one up for the green guys.

    • Re:Time to update... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:29PM (#16945092)
      It might be time to update the Mars Scorecard.... although we got some good work out of the MGS, it might be time to mark this one up for the green guys.


      You know, I mostly stopped commenting (or even reading) space related stories on /. long ago, because the commenters and moderators don't know jack shit about space or space exploration.

      You just got added to the wrong column of that scorecard.

      Mars Global Surveyor was a huge win in Earth's column. The spacecraft returned friggen superb results, for far longer than we expected. We didn't get "some good work out of MGS," we got vast amounts of good work out of it.

      God damn, I wish Slashdot quit posting space related stories.

  • Sony Battery Recall (Score:4, Funny)

    by QuantumRiff (120817) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:04PM (#16944906)
    NASA was trying to cut costs by using off the shelf components. Unfortunately, UPS does not deliver replacement batteries to their current location ;)

  • Wow.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dtdns (559328)
    And I thought losing SSH access to my BSD server 3000 miles away was a tough break. I can't even imagine what kind of inventive hacks would be needed to restore a lost probe orbiting another planet.
  • Forever? Is the submitter implying that humans will Never make it to Mars?

  • Voyager is going to keep its record... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by surfdaddy (930829) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:28PM (#16945076)
    for a while longer. The two spacecraft, launched in the mid 1970's, are almost 30 years old. And they're still working, 9 billion miles away. They're well beyond the orbit of Pluto. Now that's impressive. Not to take away from Mars Global Surveyor or the twin rovers.
    • I agree - that those craft are still even alive is a wonder. Still, considering how old they are, how far away, and how run down their power sources are, does NASA still get anything from them? Are they actually still working in any appreciable way?

      Curious to know (not just nit-picking semantics), I decided to go to the JPL mission page [nasa.gov]. Voyager 1 passed the 100 AU mark this summer, that's about 12 light-hours. Although it's signal is very weak, we can still talk to it a bit. According to this blurb [nasa.gov]

      • Re:Voyager is going to keep its record... (Score:5, Informative)

        by cyclone96 (129449) on Wednesday November 22 2006, @12:47AM (#16945620)
        does NASA still get anything from them?

        Absolutely. Voyagers 1 and 2 are still doing significant work, since they are so distant and still functioning. They have begun to encounter the outer reaches of the solar system, where the influence of the Sun ends and interstellar space begins. NASA believes they recently crossed the termination shock and may be approaching the Heliopause. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopause [wikipedia.org]

        It's going to be a very, very, very long time before another probe gets out as far as the Voyagers are (if Pluto Express lasts that long, at least 20 years). Voyager gets a fairly decent chunk of Deep Space Network tracking time because of the importance of what it is doing.

        The oldest satellites still functioning are Pioneers 6,7, and 8, which are all around 40 years old and still ticking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_6,_7,_8_and_9 [wikipedia.org]. They don't get tracked much, however, because the science they are returning has been surpassed by other probes. They've basically become an experiment in how long satellites can still function.
    • That's because Voyager is nuclear powered. Good luck getting the masses to approve shooting up another nuclear power package.
  • Mars Anti Satellite Command (MASC) reports another successful test of the new anti-satellite interceptor.

    • Suppose you wished we'd just stayed up in the trees then, ya?

        • Re:I call shenanigans (Score:4, Insightful)

          by rk (6314) * on Wednesday November 22 2006, @10:22AM (#16950378) Journal

          Implicit in your assumption is that a mission is operated solely by NASA civil service employees, which is a handy assumption for your flip answer, but meanwhile, back in the real world, that's not the case. I'll grant that the people who will be affected have some warning, but I guarantee you Griffin and Co. are already planning on where to reallocate the extended mission money if and when they declare MGS dead. That money doesn't all go to NASA facilities. The science operations for the Mars Orbiter Camera goes to a small company [msss.com] and the Thermal Emission Spectrometer money goes to Arizona State's Mars Space Flight Facility [asu.edu], a place I worked for 4 years and personally witnessed several people get laid off in early '06 because of NASA reallocation for the new manned program and to pay for hurricane damages to NASA facilities.

          Yeah, I'm sure the people who got laid off worked something out, and the people who will get laid off will work something out, too. You can continue to choose to "call shenanigans" all you want, but you asked a question, I answered, you didn't like the answer and decided to wave it away with flippant handwaving. This has effects on real people and your "rational ignorance" becomes willful ignorance if you choose to continue to deny it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Daetrin (576516)
      When did all this happen?

      Well you could just click on the link to RTFA and find that it happened on the 2nd of this month. (This month is November if you're _really_ not paying attention.) Or you could put "mars" into the search bar for Slashdot and find this article [slashdot.org] from about a week and a half ago.

    • Re:What is with Mars? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by toadlife (301863) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:04PM (#16944900) Journal
      1) Because it's fairly close to us?

      2) Because there is evidence that there used to be water on the planet, which means it's possible there used to be life there?

      3) Because it's atmosphere is relatively mild, which makes it easier to build machines that can stand it?

      4) Just because?
      • I'd like to also add that it's the next most likely planet to which we send a manned mission, for the above reasons and it's the most likely planet for possible future colonization. All things considered it's probably the best candidate for exploration right now, close and somewhat similar but quite different from Earth as well.

    • Re:What is with Mars? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by camperdave (969942) on Wednesday November 22 2006, @12:31AM (#16945508) Journal
      There truly is nothing more to see on that rock, for we have all seen the countless images from mars.

      We've all seen pictures of the top of Mt Everest. Does that mean we should no longer climb mountains? We have seen pictures of the ocean floor. Should we no longer SCUBA dive? By no means! We explore because it is human nature to test our limits, to push the boundaries, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

      We have not even seen one tenth of one percent of the Martian surface, yet there "is nothing more to see". Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the Solar System, three times as tall as Mt Everest, but who cares. There is nothing to see. Tourists flock by the millions each year to take in the Grand Canyon. The Valles Marineris is the deepest canyon system in the Solar System. Five times deeper, and hundreds of times longer, it makes the Grand Canyon look like a tire rut. But who cares. We've seen a few pictures of a couple of Martian rocks, so there's no point in going to the Valles Marineris. Well, Here's [englishriverwebsite.com] a picture of some Earth rocks, and here's [google.com] a link to some maps. So now you don't ever have to leave your house.

      As for Mars being lifeless, we do not *know* that there is no life on Mars. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Why, Opportunity could find lichen on a rock tomorrow afternoon.

    • Re:So what's the point in trying to see it, anyway (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lindsley (194412) on Wednesday November 22 2006, @01:08AM (#16945758)

      Same thing. First, verify it's where it's supposed to be. Second, if the resolution is good enough (and they weren't sure it would be) see if it seems to be oriented correctly.

      If it's not where it's supposed to be, then there's a partial explanation of why it's not responding -- it's off course -- and also tells them their options are limited to setting it straight again. If it is, but it's oriented incorrectly, then the batteries are not getting recharged and you focus on getting it oriented correctly so it can get power again. If it is present, oriented correctly, and still not responding, then you've got a different set of options.

      More information can only help.

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