Contact: Mary Hardin, JPL, (818) 354-5011
Joan Underwood, Lockheed Martin Astronautics (303) 971-7398
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 30, 1999
MARS CLIMATE ORBITER TEAM FINDS LIKELY CAUSE OF LOSS
A failure to recognize and correct an error in a transfer of
information between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in
Colorado and the mission navigation team in California led to the
loss of the spacecraft last week, preliminary findings by NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory internal peer review indicate.
"People sometimes make errors," said Dr. Edward Weiler,
NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science. "The problem
here was not the error, it was the failure of NASA's systems
engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes to
detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft."
The peer review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key spacecraft operation. This information was critical to the maneuvers required to place the spacecraft in the proper Mars orbit.
"Our inability to recognize and correct this simple error
has had major implications," said Dr. Edward Stone, director of
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We have underway a thorough
investigation to understand this issue."
Two separate review committees have already been formed to investigate the loss of Mars Climate Orbiter: an internal JPL peer group and a special review board of JPL and outside experts. An independent NASA failure review board will be formed shortly.
"Our clear short-term goal is to maximize the likelihood of
a successful landing of the Mars Polar Lander on December 3,"
said Weiler. "The lessons from these reviews will be applied
across the board in the future."
Mars Climate Orbiter was one of a series of missions in a long-term program of Mars exploration managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
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