NASA Says Mars Orbiter Lost In Space
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - An unmanned $125 million spacecraft, intended to be
the first interplanetary weather station, went missing Thursday and NASA scientists said
they feared it had broken up just as it was starting to circle Mars. Scientists at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said there also was a possibility that the Mars
Climate Orbiter may have crashed into the Martian surface.
Scientists lost communication with
the unmanned orbiter after it circled behind the Red Planet at about 5:30 a.m. EDT.
Project manager Richard Cook told a news conference at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, ``We believe the spacecraft came in at a lower altitude than we thought it
would and that potentially resulted in the loss of the mission.''
The most likely scenario, he said, was that it had broken up.
``There is a possibility that it impacted the surface, but that is a remote
possibility,'' Cook said.
The climate orbiter was launched in December 1998 with NASA hoping that it would
gather data on atmospheric conditions on Mars through each of its seasons and learn about
past and future weather conditions.
It aimed to study Martian weather for one Mars year -- about two Earth years --
to glean information on the cycles of water, carbon dioxide and dust on Earth's neighbor.
Cook said that NASA scientists had expected that the orbiter would approach Mars
at an altitude of between 87 and 93 miles when it fact it came in at 37 miles above the
surface of the planet. He said the minimum survival altitude was 53 miles.
The project's development manager, John McNamee, said, ``We don't believe that
(37 miles) is survivable.''
Cook said there was a ``significant drop'' in altitude in the last few hours of
the approach to Mars, but the reason for that had not yet been determined.
Asked if human error, software or mechanical problems were to blame, Cook said,
``We are essentially ruling out spacecraft (mechanical) error and we are looking at the
other two.''
But both Cook and McNamee stressed that their ground crews were not suffering
from ``burnout.''
Cook added, ``Deep space navigation is very complex. We are pushing the state of
the art to its limits. Yesterday we believed that we knew where the spacecraft was but we
were out by about 62 miles. This is a very significant change in altitude and that is why
were are so shocked.''
Cook said scientists still were looking for the craft by sending signals into
space over a broad wave band, but had been unable to locate it.
The apparent loss of the climate orbiter follows a dazzling string of successes
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's ``better, cheaper, faster''
program.
NASA has launched successfully 20 unmanned deep-space probes in the last two
years, including the Mars Pathfinder mission that grabbed the attention and imagination of
the world with its little Mars Rover, which sent back thousands of pictures and millions
of pieces of information as it examined the surface of the Red Planet.
Carl Pilcher, the mission's science director, said with such a launch rate it
was inevitable that something eventually would go wrong.
``It is an inevitable part of pushing the envelope. There will be failures. I
would like to say we would be successful 100 percent of the time but that won't happen,
but we will be successful most of the time,'' he said.
Mars Climate Orbiter also was intended as a vital link in the Mars Polar Lander
mission. That craft is due to land on Mars on Dec. 3 and the climate orbiter would have
acted as a relay station between the lander and scientists on earth.
Cook said the probable loss of the climate orbiter would complicate the lander
mission, but contingency plans were already in place for the lander to transmit data
directly to Earth through the Deep Space Network and via the Mars Global Surveyor.
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