Nov 4 1997
From The Space Library
After a four-month mission, NASA officials announced that Mission Control had halted communications with Mars Pathfinder and its rover Sojourner. Sojourner's batteries were nearly drained, and many of the rover's instruments had frozen in Mars's harsh climate. Mission controllers expected the rover simply to come to a halt on Mars's vast plains, ceasing signal transmissions altogether. Nevertheless, NASA considered the US$266 million mission largely successful. The mission had lasted much longer than planned, transmitting, from the surface of the Red Planet to Earth, nearly 10,000 pictures of the Martian landscape, including images showing evidence of erosion, as well as more than 1.2 billion bits of data. Sojourner's remarkable service, even in the midst of harsh dust storms and temperatures reaching -50°F (-6°C), had excited scientists and public alike. Mars Pathfinder Web sites had received more than 565 million hits during the mission's tenure. Using the treasure trove of information Pathfinder had gathered, scientists had concluded that Mars's surface had many similarities to that of Earth. Perhaps the most compelling was the evidence compiled during the mission in support of the theory that, at one time, Mars had water on its surface. In addition, the mission's research team concluded that water and wind had played crucial roles in shaping the planet's surface. Mission controllers spoke of their gratitude for the data gathered, which would keep scientists busy for years, as well as about their excitement at the possibility of building upon Mars Pathfinder's success in future missions.
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