WEEKLY WHINE

Planetfest report

This weekend at Planetfest, people gathered for a planetary party and for real time results from the three probes arriving at Mars: Mars Polar Lander and the two Deep Space 2 penetrators.

But as you may be aware, the spacecraft have not yet crashed the party. As of 22:00 PST today, JPL has heard nothing from any of the three spacecraft. Needless to say, this does not make anybody very happy. Coming into the weekend, many of us felt that we had good odds to get results from MPL and from at least one DS2 probe. As it is, though, space fans will probably have to live with yet another failure of a Mars probe.

Generally, Mars has been a challenge for robotic spacecraft. None of the first six probes to Mars in the 1960s were successful. The first Mars flyby was performed by the American Mariner 4 in 1965, returning closeup images of its surface. Mariner 4 shot down the sci fi community's hopes of a warm, wet Mars, showing a barren, cratered surface like a larger version of the Moon. In 1969, Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 flew by Mars, sending back more images. These probes were the first to discover that the Martian atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide.

The first spacecraft to reach the Martian surface was the Mars 2 lander, launched by the Soviet Union in 1971. The lander crashed, but the Mars 3 lander made the first soft landing on Mars on FRI 02 DEC 1971. Unfortunately, it didn't even last two minutes, barely transmitting part of a picture.

Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars in 1971, compiling a complete map of the surface. The Viking 1 and Viking 2 spacecraft, comprising an orbiter and lander each, reached Mars in 1976. The landers included experiments to analyze the soil and try to detect life, but the results were inconclusive. The Viking 1 lander continued returning data until 1982.

In 1997, Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor reached the planet after fifteen years of down time. They showed terrain that is probably a result of erosion by water in the past; Mars must have had surface water at some point in its history. So with these results, three missions were sent to Mars in 1998 and 1999. Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and Deep Space 2 were to search for evidence of water ice below the surface of Mars.

But MPL and the DS2 microprobes Amundsen and Scott have all disappeared without a trace. Repeated attempts to contact them via MGS have all gone fruitless to this point. Combined with the failure of MCO in SEP 1999, JPL is shooting 0-for-4 in the past four months. This comes as a sharp contrast to Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor, missions that have been remarkably successful both from scientific and public standpoints. Mars Pathfinder was especially popular, capitalizing on ordinary people's love for automated rovers with alpha proton X ray spectrometers.

People at Planetfest have not been overly disappointed about the probable loss of MPL and DS2. With the splendid party thrown by the Planetary Society, how could they not? Even though no news has come from Mars, there were representatives from the science teams of Galileo and Cassini, missions to Jupiter and Saturn respectively. Authors, sci fi and sci fact alike, were easily accessible. We heard plentiful information from Planetfest's co-chairs, Buzz Aldrin and Bill Nye the Science Guy. We heard more from the Planetary Society's president, Bruce Murray, and from its executive director, Lou Friedman, stressing the importance of continuing exploration of the Solar System.

Events were also broadcast over the Internet. NASA administrator Dan Goldin stopped by, telling Dr Friedman how important it is to find out whether Mars once had life. We found all manner of results from Galileo's recent flybys of the volcanically hyperactive moon Io.

But we could see the effects of the MPL/DS2 difficulty. Many events on the schedule labeled "News Briefing", "Mars Polar Lander Update", and the like turned into reassurance sessions, featuring mission scientists trying to emphasize that there are still additional opportunities to receive transmissions. The Mars Microphone Room was still popular despite being limited to speculation. "If the microphone is working, what might it be recording?"

Fortunately, visitors were kept occupied by the variety of exhibit tables, with everything from really big Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes to temporary tattoos featuring the NASA insignia. We weren't permitted to leave without big stacks of handouts from any and every group that participated.

Most likely, the next Planetfest will be for the arrival of the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander, which will in fact land in 2002. The orbiter-lander pair could be modified to carry at least one of the instruments lost this year, although the lander already has a robotic arm similar to that of Mars Polar Lander. We'd all prefer to have some successes for a change, so that the rallying cry of Mars exploration does not become, "Get those units right!"