OM wrote:

...IIRC, they were saying for a while that *one* of them would get to
see one or both of the shell halves, but all of a sudden they quit
making that promise.


Which seems strange; I would have gone for the impact hole immediately,
as it would have been a superb chance to see freshly exposed Martian
subsurface material. If you were going to find subsurface ice before it
sublimated into the atmosphere, this would be a great place to start
looking.

Pat