Mars Global Surveyor’s mission will be ten years old on Tuesday.
UPDATE: Uh-oh…looks like MGS’ ten-year warranty must have expired, right on schedule:
NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor has been out of contact with Earth for nearly a week and engineers tried Friday to re-establish communication with the craft, which may be showing its age after 10 years in space.The space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena lost contact with the probe for two days last week, then received a weak carrier signal with no data on Sunday. Since then, Surveyor has not confirmed receiving a command to point one of its transmitters to Earth, project manager Tom Thorpe said.
