Blogs / Bad Astronomy

Mars Global Surveyor: not looking good

Emily has the details.

November 21st, 2006 2:27 PM by Phil Plait in Astronomy, NASA, Science | 14 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

14 Responses to “Mars Global Surveyor: not looking good”

1. 1.   IT: Instructional Technology Says:
   November 21st, 2006 at 8:04 pm

   Bloggers As Public Intellectuals…

   I’m blogging another panel I heard at L.A.Con IV; this one was on blogging. Speaker(s): MaryAnn Johanson, Phil Plait, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Kevin Drum, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Cory Doctorow (Moderator). H.L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, I.F. Stone, Germai…

2. 2.   Dave Kary Says:
   November 21st, 2006 at 9:13 pm

   Sounds like the Martians have finally gotten their anti-satellite weapons back into working order. They had a pretty good record for a while there in the 90’s, but lately they’re shooting has been a little off.

3. 3.   Sticks Says:
   November 22nd, 2006 at 1:04 am

   I am confused here, doe the loss of MGS mean we have lost the connection to Spirit and opportunity?

4. 4.   Sticks Says:
   November 22nd, 2006 at 2:08 am

   How this is reported on the BBC website

5. 5.   Jefferey Says:
   November 22nd, 2006 at 5:36 am

   The Mars Global Surveyor isn’t lost. It is only in a lay down period. The design of the surveyor was this. After every 10 years or number of orbits around mars; it rest for another 10 years. Don’t worry it will crank up again. I’ll explain:

   When we designed it, we started a way to keep updated with the software aboard. Knowing these aspects, it was then designed to lie low at this present state. It’s called a cool down and re-think situation. Please be patience.

6. 6.   Melusine Says:
   November 22nd, 2006 at 6:11 am

   Speaking of Emily’s great reporting, I got my Planetary Report issue (from The Planetary Society), which has those great photos of Mars. I love the opening paragraph by Jim Bell:

   All of us on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) team realize that we’re blessed with having some of the coolest jobs in the world. Every morning when I come into work, I start up my computer and download brand-new pictures from Mars taken by cameras on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which my colleagues and I from Cornell, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and other institutions around the world helped to build and continue to operate. Often these pictures from Mars are only a few hours (or only a few minutes!) old. Incredible. I look at the Sun shining outside my office window, and it reminds me of the motto that we put on each rover’s calibration target, or MarsDial: “Two Worlds, One Sun.”

   Death of an orbiter or satellite is never a pleasant thing, in fact, it’s quite sad. But I think of those two happy rovers still chugging along…and well, life goes on.

7. 7.   DennyMo Says:
   November 22nd, 2006 at 6:25 am

   If any of you have seen the trailer for the upcoming “Transformers” movie, you already *know* what happened to MGS…

8. 8.   sirjonsnow Says:
   November 22nd, 2006 at 6:45 am

   So, you’re saying there may be more to this than meets the eye?

9. 9.   Rob Says:
   November 22nd, 2006 at 7:08 am

   I think Spirit and Opportunity communicate directly with Earth most of the time – certainly they seems to have been doing things since NASA lost contact with MGS. There’s the European orbiter up there still as well (whose name escapes me right now).

10. 10.   Melusine Says:
    November 22nd, 2006 at 8:14 am

    Rob, are you thinking of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter?

11. 11.   Jenn Says:
    November 22nd, 2006 at 8:21 am

    Spirit and Opportunity can both communicate directly to Earth, but they also both routinely use NASA’s Odyssey for relay of their data. They have both also used Mars Global Surveyor for data relay, as a backup. So, no, the loss of MGS is not also the loss of the Rovers. The ESA orbiter is Mars Express.

12. 12.   Melusine Says:
    November 22nd, 2006 at 8:54 am

    Oh, duh, http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/express/

    Thanks, Jenn.

13. 13.   MaDeR Says:
    November 23rd, 2006 at 4:40 pm

    Anyone have good epitaph for MGS grave?

14. 14.   spaecerader Says:
    November 23rd, 2006 at 6:53 pm

    There is still Mars Reconnasence Orbiter and oddyssey orbiter they can both communicate with the rovers.

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