Talk:Mars Pathfinder

Intro

I think the introduction to this article should be revised to state up front what the Pathfinder actually is. I'm working on cleaning up the Pathfinder disambiguation page, which currently says this is a "NASA exploration probe", and I checked the article to verify that was an accurate description, but the intro is just telling me about the launch of this thing and not whether or not it actually is a NASA exploration probe; maybe it's actually a big sack of M&M's strapped to a rocket for all I know. (But I guess I'll assume for now that it is indeed a NASA exploration probe.) Propaniac (talk) 15:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Complete agreement! I came to the discussion section to make the same statement, and find that Propaniac made this statement five months ago. I have only a vague idea what Pathfinder is after reading the introductory paragraph. Ronstew (talk) 21:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Two questions

• What gas was actually in the airbags ? (presumably something inert)
• What was the actual reason for the probe's eventual failure ? All it says at the moment is they stopped receiving communications.

The Yeti (talk) 14:24, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Possible COI

A close relative of mine worked as a research scientist on Mars Pathfinder, and I'm interested in both contributing to the main article here and creating new pages for the scientific equipment aboard Pathfinder's lander and the Sojourner rover. As I'm new to Wikipedia, I feel I should ask whether it would be a conflict of interest for me to do so. May I ask what this group thinks? -- Darmokandjalad (talk) 22:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The folks at the COI discussion board said I should be good to go provided I behave myself, so I'm going to start editing this article and drafting articles about the science results. You can check out a draft of the first of these here. Feedback welcome. Darmokandjalad (talk) 10:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Place in Popular Culture

I think it might be worth merging some of the material about Pathfinder's place in popular culture into a new section. To that section, I'd like to discuss how the mission's landing was televised, as well as how it was (I believe) the first NASA mission to provide image and data results from the mission on the Internet in near real-time. I remember fondly being fascinated by our new-found ability to examine professional data using the then-new-fangled Information Superhighway, and impressed by the statistic that the Pathfinder mission website became the single-most visited site to-date when the spacecraft arrived on Mars. -- Darmokandjalad (talk) 03:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Results of Mission Experiments

I am attempting to expand coverage of the results of Pathfinder's assorted experiments, starting with an article discussing the outcome of the Materials Adherence Experiment. I've submitted a draft to the AfC project, but I'm wondering if an editor with an interest in Pathfinder might care to take a look? -- Darmokandjalad (talk) 20:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

On-board computer reset

I can't find any sources confirming a computer reset on the 5th July 1997. Are we sure that it happened ? The earliest "computer reset" I could find was dated on the 10th July but sadly, most sources don't even mention specific dates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Helional (talk • contribs) 09:10, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

No Specification Design

Couldn't find mass of lander (inc airbags) - or size of airbags. Could add a Design section, like other articles ? - Rod57 (talk) 21:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

End of mission details

End of mission says "onboard battery" is this onboard the lander or the rover ? Presumably the lander. Battery failure led to comms failure - was it a transmitter failure (no signal seen at Earth) or a receiver failure (ignoring commands from earth) ? Was battery or anything else degrading on lander before comms lost ?
Lander was doing a panorama survey when comms was lost. What was rover programmed to do if it had no more commands from Earth ? - Rod57 (talk) 12:41, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Could describe "automated obstacle avoidance"

"obstacle" in lead is "hazard" later in article. The D.Stone ref (here in Talk) has lots of detail on how the rover senses obstacles/hazards (stopping every wheel rotation to project beams to observe) to avoid them and and follow its navigation commands. Could mention here with detail in sojourner (rover) - Rod57 (talk) 13:47, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

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GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Mars Pathfinder/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Deborah.artemis (talk · contribs) 22:28, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Phlsph7 (talk · contribs) 10:17, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello Deborah.artemis and thanks for all your improvements to this article. However, despite the improvements, the article fails criterion 2b since there are too many unreferenced paragraphs. Examples are the paragraphs starting with "The rover was equipped with three CCD cameras", "The entire entry, descent and landing process was completed in four minutes", "The Sojourner rover departed from the lander on Sol 2, after its landing on July 4, 1997", and "The first analysis on a rock started on Sol 3 with Barnacle Bill". According to criterion 2b, these and similar passages require inline citations "no later than the end of the paragraph". I suggest that you add all the relevant references before a renomination.

A few other observations

• WP:EARWIG detects a potential copyvio: the sentence "Scientists chose it because they found it to be a relatively safe surface to land on and one that contained a wide variety of rocks deposited during a catastrophic flood." seems to be a close paraphrase of the source text. I suggest reformulating it some more.
• Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP), (includes magnetometer and anemometer) is this supposed to be a sentence? If so, remove the comma, remove the second set of parentheses, and finish with a period.
• Atmospheric and meteorological sensors (ASI/MET). is this supposed to be a heading or a sentence?
• that the lander velocity would be reduced to about zero should this be "lander's velocity"?
• the final rock contains less iron and magnesiums should this be "magnesium"?
• robotic space missions to Mars, a MESR goal. should it be "MESUR goal"? If not, the acronym MESR should be explained.
• lander was a Radiation Hardened IBM Risc 6000 Single Chip should it be "radiation-hardened"?

Phlsph7 (talk) 10:17, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why make all these observations and then close this? Deborah.artemis (talk) 01:11, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

The observations were stated to point out issues with the current version of the article, which could lead to improvements. The review was closed per WP:QF. At any time, you can start a new GA nomination. Before that, I suggest that you implement the suggestions unless you are aware of a good reason not to. You can also ask for more feedback on the article talk page, my user talk page, or at a peer review. This review page is probably not the best place for an extensive discussion since the review is already closed. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:05, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand why you wouldn't just use the GA in question for the observations. Unless there's something so egregious, it should be blocked from the get go.

Deborah.artemis (talk) 17:59, 13 April 2026 (UTC)