Volunteers asked to help find dead spacecraft on Mars

20:09 12 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Hazel Muir

Scientists have invited the public to trawl high-resolution images for signs of NASA's Mars Polar Lander, which went silent on arrival at Mars in 1999. Finding the wreckage might explain why the mission failed.

"If we can find the Mars Polar Lander and be convinced we understand what we're looking at, it might provide some clues as to what went wrong," says Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson, US. "There could be lessons there that are applicable to future landers."

The Mars Polar Lander was supposed to study the Martian climate as well as soil and ice close to the planet's south pole. But mission controllers lost contact with the probe when it landed. An investigation suggested it probably smashed onto the surface at high speed because the engines that should have slowed the craft's descent shut down too quickly.

Scientists thought they saw the dead lander in images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor satellite in 2000, but these turned out to be a mirage. Now images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are offering another chance for the probe to be found.

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