For a week now, NASA has been trying to get back in touch with the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft that has been in space for over a decade now.

The MGS has for ten years been scouting out future landing sites for NASA whilst also returning amazing images during its systematic mapping of the Red Planet. The image included here is of the planet’s north polar ice cap, taken on October 15th this year. It is one of over 240,000 images returned by the craft during its lifetime.

Last week one of the motors on board, controlling one of the solar arrays, malfunctioned. This may have forced MGS into power-saving mode whereby it turns to allow its solar panels to face the Sun. Thomas Thorpe, MGS project manager, told the BBC that this might have brought the craft’s antennas and transmitters out of alignment with Earth.

If that is the case then no one knows where to direct the signals or if the orbiter is even recieving them. If it is, then it has been told to turn one of its low-gain anntenae toward the Earth as soon as possible and when it does communication may be re-established. So really its a waiting game.

The MGS is one of four objects orbiting Mars at present. The others are NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express.