The Mars Polar Lander flight team continued efforts to regain
communications with the lander spacecraft. The final set of planned commands were transmitted late
last week to place the spacecraft in UHF safe mode. A series of relay communications sessions have
been scheduled with Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) over the last week to listen for the lander around the
clock. These attempts will end on Monday, January 17, at which time we expect to end our attempts to
recover the spacecraft.
Mars Global Surveyor continues to perform special targeted observations of the Mars Polar Lander
landing site in hopes of imaging the lander or the parachute. The team has started in depth analysis of
terrain hazards within the landing footprint in support of the investigation being led by John Casani.
