Reblogged from Trent’s World:

Photo by Sue Vincent

“Their signal was lost.”

“What?”  The ringing of my phone had woken me from a deep sleep and my head was still foggy.

“Sorry, ma’am.  The signal was lost, all telemetry data gone.”

I still couldn’t register what was happening.  Zoe?  How could this be?

“Did they crash?  Impact on landing or…?”  I glanced at the clock.  It was 4 AM.  They weren’t supposed to be on the surface for two more hours.  I had planned on being up and observing in real time.  Well, real time minus the second and a half delay as the signal crawled across the 385,000 km.

“No.  The lander had separated from the station as scheduled.  The trajectory was fine and they had plenty of altitude.  We can see it and cannot see signs of a hull breach or any signs of catastrophic event, but there is no signals of any type coming from the lander.”  It was a familiar male voice, but I still wasn’t sure of who I was talking to.

“When did this happen?”

“We lost the signal about a half an hour ago, Dr. Barnes.  We wanted to give them a chance to respond before we contacted you.”  Was it the Administrator of NASA?

“Thanks.”  I said.  “Call back when you know more.”  I hung up before he could respond.

After a quick check to make sure the kids were still sleeping, I was outside in cold dark.

Continue reading here.