You could almost imagine the pleading tones as NASA scientists urged their pet project to phone home once more. But nine weeks after its final mission, the Mars Polar Lander remained lost in space.
Hope flared briefly in January that signals from the $165 million craft might have been heard by the Dish, the 150-foot antenna that sits in the Stanford Foothills. During a review of earlier recorded data, scientists noticed faint signals detected on December 18 and January 4 that could have come from the missing probe. At first, they expressed cautious optimism. "It's like going to the funeral of a friend and then suddenly learning that he may not be dead," Sam Thurman, the Lander's flight director, told reporters.
Scientists and lay people alike had been riveted by the Lander's mission, which was expected to provide clues about life elsewhere in the galaxy. When the craft fell silent as it attempted to land on Mars on December 3, those dreams were crushed. NASA researchers sent out order after order for the craft to respond -- to no avail.
Then, in late January, Stanford scientists reported the signals to their colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who had officially ended their search for the craft on January 17. The NASA team again ordered the Lander to signal Earth. Other antennas in Europe also turned their ears toward the red planet. But tests eventually ruled out the possibility that the signals came from the Lander. This time, it looks like the funeral is for real.
