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Scientist Has Low Expectations for Lander Hunt
By Andrew Chaikin
Executive Editor, Space and Science
posted: 03:46 pm ET
16 December 1999
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Scientist Urges Caution on Polar Lander HuntNASA's lone Mars orbiter started a photographic search for its latest lost mission at the red planet Thursday. But the scientist who designed the orbiter's camera is pessimistic about the chances of finding Mars Polar Lander, the spacecraft lost at Mars two weeks ago, on the day it was set to land. "The probability of seeing something is pretty small," said geologist Mike Malin, mostly because of the poor illumination of the suspected landing area. The area is close to the martian south pole, so the sun never climbs very high above the horizon. As a result, Malin said, pictures taken of the region do not show as much detail as those taken of better-illuminated areas. At best, the lander is likely to show up as a tiny dark smudge, occupying only one or two picture elements (pixels). Pictures of poorly lit places have more "image noise," Malin says, which will make the search even more difficult. Members of the camera team for the Mars Global Surveyor will first individually examine every picture taken in the search and then collectively rank features suspected to be the Polar Lander or its parachute and aeroshell. These results will be sent to personnel with the lander mission and an orbiter mission also lost at Mars earlier this year, along with image data containing the features that could be the missing lander. After review and discussion, NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the agency facility which oversaw both lost missions, will decide whether to continue the search or take other actions.
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