鈥淚 CAME, I saw, I dug.鈥� That was the most popular epitaph for the now-defunct Phoenix Mars lander in an last week. On Monday, NASA said that it had lost contact with the lander, bringing the mission to an end.
Despite attempts to contact it using two orbiting spacecraft, Phoenix has been silent since 2 November. 鈥淲e鈥檙e pretty much convinced that the vehicle is no longer available,鈥� says NASA鈥檚 Barry Goldstein.
Phoenix鈥檚 end came three weeks earlier than anticipated. The craft鈥檚 solar power had been dwindling as the Martian winter approached, and a dust storm late last month accelerated decline by darkening the skies.
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Phoenix is not expected to survive the Martian winter, when temperatures will drop below -150 掳C. The solar arrays 鈥渨ill likely crack and fall off the vehicle鈥�, says Goldstein. Still, the team plans to check again in October 2009, when enough sunlight returns to power the lander. 鈥淭his vehicle has been so superlative in the way it鈥檚 been behaving since it landed, nothing would surprise me,鈥� says Goldstein.