diff --git a/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/executor.go b/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/executor.go
index a3ec909992522..6aec2e97033b3 100644
--- a/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/executor.go
+++ b/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/executor.go
@@ -717,8 +717,8 @@ func (k *KubernetesExecutor) FrameworkMessage(driver bindings.ExecutorDriver, me
 
 	log.Infof("Receives message from framework %v\n", message)
 	//TODO(jdef) master reported a lost task, reconcile this! @see scheduler.go:handleTaskLost
-	if strings.HasPrefix(message, "task-lost:") && len(message) > 10 {
-		taskId := message[10:]
+	if strings.HasPrefix(message, messages.TaskLost+":") {
+		taskId := message[len(messages.TaskLost)+1:]
 		if taskId != "" {
 			// clean up pod state
 			k.lock.Lock()
diff --git a/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/messages/messages.go b/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/messages/messages.go
index f3287b2c9f536..f16a81eaad554 100644
--- a/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/messages/messages.go
+++ b/contrib/mesos/pkg/executor/messages/messages.go
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ const (
 	ExecutorShutdown         = "executor-shutdown"
 	LaunchTaskFailed         = "launch-task-failed"
 	TaskKilled               = "task-killed"
+	TaskLost                 = "task-lost"
 	UnmarshalTaskDataFailure = "unmarshal-task-data-failure"
 	TaskLostAck              = "task-lost-ack" // executor acknowledgement of forwarded TASK_LOST framework message
 	Kamikaze                 = "kamikaze"
diff --git a/contrib/mesos/pkg/scheduler/scheduler.go b/contrib/mesos/pkg/scheduler/scheduler.go
index af14b098653a9..afa8e79fe8273 100644
--- a/contrib/mesos/pkg/scheduler/scheduler.go
+++ b/contrib/mesos/pkg/scheduler/scheduler.go
@@ -441,7 +441,7 @@ func (k *KubernetesScheduler) reconcileTerminalTask(driver bindings.SchedulerDri
 		//to do anything. The underlying driver transport may be able to send a
 		//FrameworkMessage directly to the slave to terminate the task.
 		log.V(2).Info("forwarding TASK_LOST message to executor %v on slave %v", taskStatus.ExecutorId, taskStatus.SlaveId)
-		data := fmt.Sprintf("task-lost:%s", task.ID) //TODO(jdef) use a real message type
+		data := fmt.Sprintf("%s:%s", messages.TaskLost, task.ID) //TODO(jdef) use a real message type
 		if _, err := driver.SendFrameworkMessage(taskStatus.ExecutorId, taskStatus.SlaveId, data); err != nil {
 			log.Error(err.Error())
 		}