Mars lander may be crying for help

WASHINGTON, JAN. 28. NASA may have received a cry for help from its lost Mars Polar Lander.

The U.S. space agency on Wednesday broadcast commands to Mars to try to establish if a signal detected earlier in the week was sent by the missing craft.

NASA said the signal was definitely artificial and may have been sent by the damaged lander. The signal was detected by a 150-foot-wide radio dish at Stanford University in California.

The craft should have touched down at the Martian south pole on December 3 and begun sending radio signals soon after. But until now NASA has heard nothing.

The lander, which was to gather data about the climatic and geological history of Mars, fell silent soon after it began its landing sequence. Ever since, NASA scientists have been sending radio commands telling it to send a signal to the Stanford dish.

No strong signals have been received by the Stanford scientists, but further analysis has revealed the existence of a very weak signal which might be from a damaged lander.

Now NASA is sending more commands to the lander telling it to get in touch again. It will take a few days to find out if there is any response. ``This week's test is a real long-shot, and I wouldn't want to get anyone too excited about it,'' said Mr. Richard Cook, Polar Lander project manager.

Mr. Cook said the signal picked out by the Stanford team was definitely artificial but it could have originated from several places on or near Earth.

He said if the signal was from the lander it would not mean that the mission could be saved or that it would be able to carry out any scientific work. But it would help NASA scientists to work out what went wrong.

- Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2000

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