The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
Mars Global Surveyor Update: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Fails to Spot Missing Spacecraft
Nov. 21, 2006 | 12:42 PST | 20:42 UTC
I listened in to the press conference this morning, and things aren't looking good for Mars Global Surveyor. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter performed the imaging efforts, but none of the images contained any definitive sighting of the spacecraft.
I'll bet that most of the news stories you see about this today and tomorrow are obituaries. But as long as recovery efforts are continuing, I'm not ready to write off Mars Global Surveyor. They're still trying -- they're going to attempt a relay session through Mars Global Surveyor to Opportunity to Odyssey and back to Earth today, and again tomorrow. So I wrote a news update on the MRO imaging and the Opportunity communications plan, but I'm reserving my commentary on how great Mars Global Surveyor was until I'm sure it's time to speak of the mission in the past tense.
Here in the U.S. it's a holiday week -- Thanksgiving is on Thursday -- so I won't be posting much more this week, unless something really exciting happens (like if they do spot MGS).
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