Houston, we had a problem

... but they may have finally found the crash site of the Mars Polar Lander.

The observation came during a re-examination of grainy, black-and-white images taken by the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor, which searched for the probe with no success in 1999 and 2000.

"The observation of a single, small dot at the center of the disturbed location suggests that the vehicle remained more or less intact after its fall," wrote Michael Malin, president and chief scientist of San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, which operates the camera aboard Global Surveyor.

Granted, this will likely never even confirm the exact cause of the failure, nor can the mission be ressurected, but knowing where it landed can at least tell NASA how far it made it before failure. That mission was put up during a period of awful luck when we were losing spacecraft right and left. If it landed very nearly on target, then the mission worked 99% of the way as planned. Granted, as this image demonstrates, 99% if effectively no better than 1% when it comes to landing on another planet, but it at least demonstrates that we're not totally incompetent and very nearly had it right.