Viking orbiter images acquired in 1976 showed that one of thousands of buttes, mesas, ridges, and knobs in the transition zone between the cratered uplands of western Arabia Terra and the low, northern plains of Mars looked somewhat like a human face. On April 8, 2001, the first opportunity since April 1998 arose to turn the spacecraft and point the MOC at the popular "Face on Mars" feature. The Extended Mission began February 1, 2001. Following the lander search activities, a plan to conduct similar off-nadir observations during the MGS Extended Mission was put into place. When the Mars Polar Lander was lost in December 1999, this capability was again employed to search for the missing lander. In April 1998, nearly a year before MGS reached its Primary Mission mapping orbit, several tests of the spacecraft's ability to be pointed at specific features was conducted with great success (e.g., Mars Pathfinder landing site, Viking 1 site, and Cydonia landforms). In this orientation, opportunities to hit a specific small feature of interest were in some cases rare, and in other cases non-existent. Throughout the Primary Mission (March 1999 - January 2001), nearly all MGS operations were conducted with the spacecraft pointing "nadir"-that is, straight down. A chance to point the spacecraft comes about ten times a week. A key aspect of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Extended Mission is the opportunity to turn the spacecraft and point the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) at specific features of interest.
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