Mars Global Surveyor

NASA scientists have conceded the 10-year-old Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) has likely finished its operating career after the U.S. agency unsuccessfully attempting to contact it for two weeks, according to news reports Wednesday (Nov 22nd).

NASA scientists have conceded the 10-year-old Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) has likely finished its operating career after the U.S. agency unsuccessfully attempting to contact it for two weeks, according to news reports Wednesday.

"Mars Global Surveyor has surpassed all expectations," said Michael Meyer, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration`s lead scientist for Mars exploration. "It has already been the most productive science mission to Mars, and it will yield more discoveries as the treasury of observations it has made continues to be analyzed for years to come."

MGS was last heard from on Nov. 5 after earlier reporting that it had problems with a solar panel. Since then, repeat tries at resuming contact with MGS using the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Deep Space Network of powerful radio dishes have not produced results.

Global Surveyor is the oldest of five NASA spacecraft currently active at the red planet. When MGS was launched in November 1996, its original mission was to examine Mars for a full Martian year, roughly two Earth years. Once that period elapsed, NASA extended the mission repeatedly, most recently on Oct. 1.

To save money, MSG was not designed to carry enough fuel to brake directly into a circular mapping orbit. That would have required a more powerful launch vehicle, a larger spacecraft and a much higher price tag. Instead, the flight plan called for repeated dips into Mars' atmosphere to lower the high point of the initial orbit.

MGS orbiter has operated longer than any other spacecraft ever sent to Mars. It has returned more information about Mars than all earlier missions combined. Among many important accomplishments so far, Mars Global Surveyor has found many young gullies apparently cut by flowing water, discovered water-related mineral deposits that became a destination for NASA's Opportunity rover, mapped the planet topographically and examined many potential landing sites on Mars.

It's important to realize that MGS was on its third extended mission, said Wayne Sidney, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Flight Engineering Team Lead for Lockheed Martin Space Systems. And through all the years of scanning Mars, he added, MGS also supported the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's lengthy aerobraking at the planet by watching for martian dust storms that influence the planet's upper atmosphere.

Editor: Donald