PASADENA, Calif. - "We played our last ace."
With that, Mars Polar Lander Project Manager Richard Cook described Tuesday mornings failed attempt to raise a signal from the spacecraft, silent on the martian surface since landing four days earlier.
Cook conceded that the possibility of success for contacting the $165-million lander was now "remote." Controllers will continue to try, however, for the next two weeks.
The loss of the Polar Lander comes just 11 weeks after the $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter failed to enter orbit around Mars.
Together, the two missions made up the $328-million Mars 98 project, the second installment in NASAs ambitious campaign to explore the Red Planet.
Under the program, NASA aims to send a pair of spacecraft to Mars every 26 months. The next mission, which uses a craft similar to Polar Lander, is scheduled for launch in 2001.
Sarah Gavit, program manager for the Deep Space 2 mission, also conceded that the $28-million pair of microprobes -- equally silent since their arrival on Mars on Friday -- were likely lost.
The twin probes had been named for polar explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen. In describing the spirit her team brought to the mission, Gavit quoted the epitaph on Scotts memorial: "To strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield."
Chris Jones, project manager for the Mars Surveyor Program, of which the Polar Lander was a part, said that NASA would investigate the failure.
As in the case of the Climate Orbiter, two separate review boards will be formed, one within NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and one at the space agencys headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The Polar Lander had been reported in excellent condition and right on target just prior to plunging into the martian atmosphere.
"The indications were the spacecraft was healthy and ready to travel right down the pipe," said David Seidel, JPLs team leader for Mars communication.
Speaking at a press conference held at 1 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, Cook said the previous four days had been increasingly difficult. Although team members were "certainly disappointed" by the loss, Cook said they "are extremely determined that were going to recover from this and go on."
NASAs only direct means of learning the fate of the lander could come through high-resolution pictures to be taken from orbit by the Mars Global Surveyor. The first images could be received in two weeks.
Asked whether he was frustrated about not knowing the fate of the Polar Lander, Cook said, "Im frustrated, period."
Dan McCleese, the Mars Surveyor program scientist, said NASAs martian exploration plans were resilient enough to handle the loss.
"We can weather something like this," McCleese said.
Cook defended NASAs "faster, better, cheaper" approach to planetary exploration, saying, "In this business, you have to risk something to get something."
Earlier, the loss of the spacecraft had become the butt of late-night jokes on television.
"I guess officials at NASA have come out with a new book," cracked comedian Jay Leno. "Its called, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Where the Hell is the Polar Lander?"
Cook said he wanted the mission to be "remembered by the people who were involvedI have gotten to know a group of people who can move mountains, and will in the future."
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