NASA's JPL: No signal from Phoenix Mars Lander
LOS ANGELES. April 14. KAZINFORM Mars Odyssey orbiter heard no signal from the Phoenix Mars Lander when it listened from orbit while passing over Phoenix 60 times last week, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said Tuesday; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.
"In the unlikely event that Phoenix had survived the harsh Martian arctic winter and been able to achieve a power-positive state with the return of continuous sunshine, there is a very high likelihood that one or more of these 60 overflights would have overlapped with a transmission attempt by the lander," said Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for the Mars Exploration Program at JPL, which is headquartered in Pasadena, California.
"This was the last of our three planned Phoenix search campaigns. The Mars program will evaluate the results in hand to assess whether further action is warranted," Edwards said.
The third campaign to listen to signals from Phoenix lasted from April 5 through April 9, the JPL said in a news release; Kazinform cites Xinhua.
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