It would be an incredibly dim signal from a small antenna on the Lander, and though some will still try, no one is now optimistic. I was working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory the day this detection story first broke. I was helping on a completely different sort of experiment, but I have worked in radio astronomy for decades. I was asked to attend a meeting of the Deep Space Network that discussed the possible detection. Guarded elation was a heady sensation, after so much bad news.
Engineers are human.
They know the odds, but they, too, have a certain faith in technology. However, no signals ever came from the two small torpedoes the Lander pitched out at high altitude. They were to slam into the Martian soil at several hundred miles per hour speeds, bore in and report back with slender antennas what fluids they found, mostly looking for water and carbon dioxide ices. When they, too, never phoned home, the engineers hauled out all the failure scenarios and frowned. Maybe the torpedoes bored too deep to call back to us.