The Mars Polar Lander flight team continued efforts to contact the spacecraft this week. The main
effort this week focused on testing a scenario in which the spacecraft clock got scrambled after
touchdown. Commands were sent to place the spacecraft in UHF safe mode, and a number of
communications windows using Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) have been scheduled over the next 10
days. This is the last major effort planned to recover the vehicle, and the flight team expects to end
the search next week.
Mars Global Surveyor continues to perform special targeted observations of the Mars Polar Lander
landing site in hopes of imaging the lander or parachute. The project has defined a region of possible
landing sites to be imaged, including some within the large crater just to the west of the nominal
landing site. MGS has imaged a significant fraction of the possible landing sites, and no evidence of the
lander has been observed. Additional images will be acquired over the next few weeks.
