Official Goodbye To Pathfinder
It's an official goodbye to Mars Pathfinder and its little rover Sojourner.
Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena tried for hours to get the spacecraft that landed July fourth to "phone home" -- but no go.
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The lander had not communicated with the flight team since September 27th.
Using NASA's Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, scientists waited for even a fledgling radio signal indicating that the spacecraft was still alive. Tuesday at 1:21 p.m. Pacific time, Pathfinder was officially declared dead.
During its months moving around the Red Planet, Sojourner rolled about 300 feet, analyzed cartoon character-named rocks like Scooby Doo and took more than 500 pictures with its camera. The lander camera snapped more than 16-thousand images.
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