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 smooth topographic undulations which may be visible on the horizon. At 10-meter spatial scales, the available images suggest areas which appear to have etched grooves. Thermal mapping data suggest that the presence of fine-grained dusty material at the surface, with few surface rocks. At this point, anything beyond this is pure speculation. 16. How long will the landed mission last? The landed mission is scheduled to last for 87 Earth days. 17. What determines the length of the landed mission? The dura
