A spacecraft orbiting Mars will try to find out tomorrow whether the missing Mars Polar Lander actually made it to the red planet.
NASA scientists will aim a powerful camera aboard the Mars Global Surveyor at the lander’s intended touchdown area, hoping the camera will be able to see the lander’s 65-foot-long parachute.
“We don’t expect to see the lander itself, but there’s a good chance we might be able to see the parachute if it’s spread out on the surface,” said Richard Zurek, the Mars Polar Lander project scientist.
Sighting the parachute would support the possibility that the lander may have met its demise as it was descending slowly to the surface.
The lander was supposed to touch down Dec. 3 for a 90-day mission to analyze the atmosphere and search for frozen water beneath the surface near the planet’s south pole.
It never called home.
The Mars Global Surveyor has been orbiting Mars since 1997 and played a key role in the unsuccessful attempts to detect a signal from the lander.
Its main purpose is to map the surface of the planet.