De Mars Polar Lander kan als overleden beschouwd worden. De Nasa is er niet in geslaagd om contact te leggen met het arme beessie en heeft de hoop opgegeven dat dit alsnog zal gebeuren. De twee kamikaze probes die bruut de Marskloot moesten doorboren zijn tevens omgekomen. Totale kosten van deze verzameling ruimteschroot: $265 miljoen...
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - The loss of the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft has dealt a crushing blow to NASA's Mars exploration program and could result in the postponement or cancellation of the next planned trip to the red planet, a top space agency official said Tuesday.``This has been a wake up call and we are going to respond to it. We are not going to sit back and blandly go forward,'' Ed Weiler, deputy director of NASA's Office of Space Sciences, told reporters from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
The lander mission's fate was sealed at 12:30 a.m. PST (3:30 a.m. EST) on Tuesday when the craft failed to get in touch with the Mars Global Surveyor satellite circling the planet. It was the seventh attempt to get the spindly, three-legged craft to call home following its arrival on Mars on Friday.
Two microprobes sent to the surface by the lander also failed to communicate with Earth.
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Aaaach wat errug.........
