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Mars Polar Lander / Deep Space 2

Mars Polar Lander / Deep Space 2

Designed to dig for water ice on Mars with a robotic arm, the Mars Polar Lander would have been the first-ever spacecraft to land on a polar region of the Red Planet.

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Mission Statistics

Launch Date

Jan. 3, 1999

Type

Lander

Target

Mars

Status

Past

About the mission

Designed to dig for water ice on Mars with a robotic arm, the Mars Polar Lander would have been the first-ever spacecraft to land on a polar region of the Red Planet. It carried two probes called Deep Space 2 that were designed to impact the Martian surface and test new technologies.

Contact was lost with both the Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 about a year after launch. An investigation found that it was mostly likely a false signal that the spacecraft had landed that shut down the main engines and caused the spacecraft to crash into the Martian surface.

Instruments

  • Mars Volatiles and Climate Surveyor (MVACS)
  • Mars Descent Imager (MARDI)
  • Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR)
  • Mars microphone

More about Mars

Image .

South Polar Ice

Video .

Perseverance's Mastcam-Z Views Ingenuity's 47th Takeoff

Image .

Southern Dunes

News .

Engineers Keep an Eye on Fuel Supply of NASA’s Oldest Mars Orbiter

Image .

South Polar Ice

Image .

Sirenum Fossae

Image .

Perseverance's Mastcam-Z Views Ingenuity's 47th Takeoff

Image .

Rugged Crater Floor

Image .

Gorgonum Chaos

Audio .

Episode 12: Secrets of the Mars Rovers

Mars Polar Lander Website
Deep Space 2 Website
Press Kit (PDF)
Mars Website
Mars Polar Lander on Solar System Exploration
Mars Polar Lander on National Space Science Data Center

Explore Other Missions

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Mariner 3

Mars Climate Orbiter

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