Their Pathfinder mission was accomplished with a triumphant July 4 landing on Mars. Now it appears Pathfinder is lost. Communications with the Pathfinder lander and the Mars rover, Sojourner, ceased September 27. What we've been doing in the meantime is trying to recover the spacecraft so we can continue operations.
Scientists believe severe cold made the craft inoperable.
It lasted almost three times longer than scientists had anticipated. Pathfinder's radar experiments suggested the planet has a crust, a mantle and an iron core, much like Earth. That is significant because a metal core would have been formed in the presence of heat, which is one of the three critical elements for life, along with water and organic chemicals. Geologist Bob Anderson said study of the data in the years to come will eventually prove the mission's worth. The Viking project sent the first spacecraft ever to land on Mars.