"Farewell, good and faithful soldier..."

[OhioDude]

Mars Global Surveyor has been silent since November 2nd and NASA believes it has reached the end of the road.

The plan called for a two year mission. Mars Global Surveyor continued to send back valuable information about the Red Planet for 10 years. Among its accomplishments:

-- The longest and most productive science mission to Mars to date

-- First spacecraft to use only "aero-breaking" to shape its orbit

-- Data from MGS allowed NASA flight engineers to choose fruitful landing sights for rovers Opportunity and Spirit

-- MGS mapped the entire surface of Mars with unprecedented detail

-- Returned over 240,000 images of the Martian surface

Unfortunately...

MGS did NOT find any intelligent alien life on Mars thus disappointing the SETI folks. (Back on-topic)

Read the whole press release here.

 

[BlackMountainCow]

But well done anyway!



:thumbsup::beer:

 

[panhead49]

MGS did NOT find any intelligent alien life on Mars thus disappointing the SETI folks.

we are hardly done yet.......many more missions planned (because of the ground breaking work of the Mars Global Surveyor) orbiters and landing missions upcoming...:thumbsup:

 

[Kinslayer777]

Speaking of which I thought the rovers were to die quickly...What's up with their survival? (no complaints!!)

 

[Assimilator1]

I'll bet you'll find that the NASA engineers sneaked in a load more battery life than was originally intended ,like they did with the Voyagers (or was it the Pioneers?)

Thanks for the info OD ,amazing job MGS has done & an amazing overshoot of life too!:Q

 

[panhead49]

they figure it will be the "red "dust layer that will do the rovers in..........no way to clean the panels......

 

[Kinslayer777]

You're telling me they didnt install a motor squigy...? It seems simple enough... Of course other parts must be harder.