Don Savage

Headquarters, Washington, DC Aug. 20, 1999

(Phone: 202/358-1547)

Mary Hardin/Frank O'Donnell

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone: 818/354-5011)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N99-46

NASA TO REVEAL NEXT MARS LANDING SITE AUG. 25

The target landing zone for NASA's Mars Polar Lander -- a

site located in mysterious layered terrain near the Martian South
Pole -- will be unveiled in a press briefing on Wednesday, Aug.
25.

The Space Science Update will be held at 1 p.m. EDT in the

James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. SW,
Washington, DC.

Launched Jan. 3, Mars Polar Lander will set down gently on

the red planet Dec. 3 for the start of a three-month mission to
help scientists study the planet's climate history. Polar Lander
was launched toward a California-sized area at about 75 degrees
south latitude on Mars. Mission planners have been reviewing
images and three-dimensional topographic measurements from NASA's
orbiting Mars Global Surveyor mission to pick a safe and
scientifically interesting spot to land.

Piggybacking on the Polar Lander are two basketball-sized

aeroshells containing the Deep Space 2 microprobes. Part of
NASA's New Millennium program, which tests risky new technologies
for future science missions, these two grapefruit-sized
penetrators will smash into Mars at about 400 mph and search for
signs of water ice about 3 feet below the surface.

Briefers will include:

* Dr. Richard Zurek, Mars Surveyor 1998 project scientist at

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA
* Dr. Sam Thurman, Mars Polar Lander flight operations manager at
JPL
* Dr. Suzanne Smrekar, Deep Space 2 project scientist at JPL
* Moderator Joe Boyce, Mars Surveyor 1998 program scientist in
the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC

Mars Polar Lander and its companion mission, the Mars Climate
Orbiter, make up the second wave of spacecraft in the long-term
Mars Surveyor Program, which is managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science. JPL's industrial
partner in the development and operation of the Mars Global
Surveyor, Polar Lander, and Climate Orbiter spacecraft is Lockheed
Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO. JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

The briefing will be carried live on NASA Television, which

is available on transponder 9C of the GE-2 satellite at 85 degrees
west longitude, vertical polarization, frequency 3880 MHz, audio
of 6.8 MHz. Two-way question-and-answer capability will be
available for news media at NASA centers.

-end-