Has the landers landing site been chosen?
Yes. On August 25, NASA held a press conference announcing the final selection for the landing site. The landing site is located at 76S, 195W, and is on the “polar layered deposits” which may have been created by Mars’ changing climate. Images from the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and topographic data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), both aboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft currently at Mars, assisted the team in locating the landing site. 14. Who decides where the lander will land? NASA Headquarters made the final decision based on inputs from the Mars Surveyor Operations Project and independent assessments from the scientific and engineering communities. 15. What can we expect to see at the landing site? We are not completely sure. The geologic setting of the MPL landing region in the polar layered deposits quite different from that of the Viking and Pathfinder landers. At scales of 10 km, the available orbiter images of the landing region indicate the presence of sm
