NASA's Mars Polar Lander Found at Last?

Ant wrote in to mention that the Sky and Telescope is running a story (with photographs and other images) that NASA's Mars Polar Lander (MPL) may have been found. From the article: "On December 9, 1999, it was supposed to touch down near the red planet's south pole but disappeared after entering the Martian atmosphere without a trace. 5.5 years later, scientists think they may have finally located the lander's wreckage and confirmed what went wrong with the mission...The search for Mars Polar Lander was hampered by inexperience: the team didn't know what a parachute should look like or how the ground would be disturbed by the landing rockets. Lessons learned from observations of the Mars Exploration Rover landing sites helped team members identify what they think are the parachute, the rocket-blast zone, and ultimately the lander itself."

Before it gets Slashdotted...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Here's the text of the article:

In December 1999 NASA's Mars Polar Lander (MPL) was supposed to touch down near the red planet's south pole. But shortly after it entered the Martian atmosphere, the spacecraft disappeared without a trace. Only now, 5½ years later, do scientists think they may have finally located the lander's wreckage and confirmed what went wrong with the mission. The full report, by planetary scientist Michael C. Malin (Malin Space Science Systems), appears in the July 2005 issue of Sky & Telescope, now in press.

Malin used his company's Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor to search for the missing spacecraft in late 1999 and early 2000, but apparently came up empty. Shortly thereafter, a review board looking into the craft's disappearance reported what might have caused Mars Polar Lander's demise. The board suggested that MPL's landing rockets fired at the right time and altitude but cut off prematurely. They were suppose to continue firing until one of the craft's landing legs touched the surface. Apparently the onboard software mistook the jolt of landing-leg deployment for ground contact and shut down the engines, causing MPL to fall from a presumed height of 40 meters (130 feet).

Using information gained from observing the two Mars Exploration Rover landers last year, Malin reexamined the 1999 and 2000 images looking for similar features. This time he identified what looks to be a parachute located several hundred meters away from a disturbed bit of ground with a large mark in its center. The parachute-like feature closely matches the Mars Exploration Rover parachutes (which were made of the same materials), and Malin believes the disturbed ground matches what one would see if a rocket had blasted the surface from a height of tens of meters.

"It seems that the MPL investigation board may have been correct," writes Malin in Sky & Telescope. "MPL's descent proceeded more or less successfully through atmospheric entry and parachute jettison. It was only a few short moments before touchdown that disaster struck."

Later this year NASA will direct Mars Global Surveyor to reexamine the MPL crash site using a special technique to improve the camera's resolution to 0.5 meter per pixel. Malin hopes the new observations will provide the conclusive evidence needed to officially close the case of the missing Mars Polar Lander.

Such sloppy facts....

[YodaToo]

A quick calc shows its more like 5.408219178 years based on a 365 day year and counting today.

Direct link to data and photos at Malin Space

[CuriousKangaroo]

Here is the direct link to the Malin Space Science Systems page with the data and images.

In addition to MPL, they have found Viking 2.

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/05/05/ind ex.html [msss.com]

Cool stuff.

Re:wait a minute ...

[Sirch]

Is this [space.com] what you are referring to?

Re:Before it gets Slashdotted...

[Detritus]

Your answer implies the presence of significant digits that don't exist in the original measurement.

Re:Testing!

[TrippTDF]

If only they had a sensor that measured constant force exterted on a landing leg insted of the short impulse of landing.

I'm willing to bet the team wanted to disrupt the surrounding area around the craft as little as poissible. If you wait for a an extended force, that's time that the craft is on the group firing it's rockets into the ground doing nothing but churning up the landscape.

Why is there not a standard design mars landing vehicle, one that can be used to deploy any payload upto say 8^3m meters in volume, it would solve a lot of issues and reduce the overall mission costs, if designed well it could be used to land on other bodies (moon/IO/Europa) with only a slight modification to fuel levels/Paracute size/airbag preasure.

There's no standard design because we're still looking for the best solution! We've only landed a handful of times. Don't forget it's not just the landing to consider, but how we get the thing there. The systems used for the Rovers did pretty well for themselves, and I bet we see more of the Bouncy-Ball design in the future. However, landing location has a lot to do with landing type. The ice caps might in general have too delicate of a surface to ensure the bouncy-ball design work well there.

I'm sure that with continued missions, a more standard solution will come into effect.

Re:Can't Wait

[HomerJayS]

To clarify a bit. Under the (admittedly impotent)1967 UN treaty. No NATION can claim ownership of space real-estate. Private entities are free to claim ownership, getting some legal entity to affirm said ownwership and enforcement are other issues altogether.

In reality, it means that whoever gets there first (be it a nation-state sponsored colony or private entity) can do pretty much do whatever they see fit once they are there.

Re:dibs

[Vulch]

abandoned at sea, if you recover, it's yours

Not true. Under international maritime law, abandoned at sea, if you recover, the original owner (who may now be an insurance company) must be given the opportunity to reclaim it on payment of reasonable (set by an admiralty court) expenses to you.

In any case government property remains government property, and you must have that governments permission before attempting salvage operations. See the fun Curt Newport had recovering a sunk Mercury capsule recently.

Re:A proposal

[deglr6328]

The parachutes worked fine. The crash was caused by a tiny microswitch on one of the landing feet that was supposed to switch the engines off when it was clicked shut by touching rocks/dirt. It bounced shut 40M up because that's when the feet unfolded causing a slight jolt to the craft. No one anticipated that and the software was designed ONLY to say: switch closed=shut down engines now!

Re:Do I have this right? Parachute still white?

[east coast]

But the parachute that has been laying around for the last 5+ years is still in one piece, just as it fell, and is as white as can be...

From msss.com [msss.com] (where some images of the "wreck" can be seen):

"Shortly after the loss of Mars Polar Lander (MPL), the Mars Global Surveyor MOC was employed to acquire dozens of 1.5 m/pixel images of the landing uncertainty ellipses, looking for any evidence of the lander and its fate..."

These are not new images, just new finds on old images.

Re:Send in the rover

[fmayhar]

Sigh. Had you been paying attention for the last eighteen months, you would know that, one, the rovers are quite close to the equator, albeit on opposite sides of Mars. Mars Polar Lander, right? Sure, compared to the distance between here and there, they're right next to each other, but that doesn't make your idea any less inane.