综合一区欧美国产,99国产麻豆免费精品,九九精品黄色录像,亚洲激情青青草,久久亚洲熟妇熟,中文字幕av在线播放,国产一区二区卡,九九久久国产精品,久久精品视频免费

   

NASA losing hope of finding Mars probe

(AP)
Updated: 2006-11-22 09:16

On Monday night, NASA had hoped to catch a glimpse of the surveyor from the camera on the new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. But the orbiter failed to spot it.

Now NASA will try an even less likely search effort. Engineers will send a signal to the silent spacecraft, asking it to turn on a beacon on one of the two Mars rovers below. If the rover beacon turns on, NASA could figure out where the lost Mars Surveyor is, said project manager Tom Thorpe.

"While we have not exhausted everything we can do ... we believe the prospect for recovery of MGS is not looking very good at all," said Fuk Li, Mars program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which controls the probe. "We're still holding out some hope."

NASA will keep trying small-scale communications efforts. Experts believe the surveyor, which lost contact Nov. 2, probably developed a problem with a device that moves solar panels causing it to lose communication.

The entire Mars Global Surveyor program cost $247 million, including launch expenses and a decade of in-flight operations. NASA had just approved a two-year mission extension for $6 million a year.

Launched on Nov. 7, 1996, the probe gave scientists the best topographic map of any planet in the solar system, said Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres, who didn't have an instrument on board the probe but was part of NASA's scientific review team.

The probe gave Earth its first detailed views of massive dust storms and gullies. It also revealed a new mystery about Mars: It once had a magnetic field.

The low-cost probe rose "from the ashes" of a dramatic Mars failure, Squyres said. In 1993, the $813 million Mars Observer disappeared just before getting to the planet. Most of that probe's instruments were built again and included on the Mars Global Surveyor.

Christensen called the global surveyor "a workhorse" because of its numerous and diverse scientific instruments.

"It really has opened up new vistas of Mars that we hadn't the foggiest notion of," said Arizona State University geologist Ron Greeley.


 12


Top World News  
Today's Top News  
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
手游| 石台县| 安塞县| 高邑县| 中超| 和硕县| 黎平县| 尉犁县| 元阳县| 临泽县| 龙陵县| 丹凤县| 汉沽区| 周口市| 汤原县| 东港市| 九江市| 丘北县| 沧州市| 田阳县| 库伦旗| 张掖市| 隆回县| 平顶山市| 卓资县| 搜索| 抚远县| 墨竹工卡县| 新津县| 西峡县| 南华县| 孝义市| 前郭尔| 班玛县| 阿拉善盟| 若羌县| 庄河市| 永安市| 松桃| 米易县| 台北市|