Mars Climate Orbiter

Mars Climate Orbiter
Artist's conception of the Mars Climate Orbiter
NamesMars Surveyor '98 Orbiter
Mission typeMars orbiter
OperatorNASA/JPL
COSPAR ID1998-073A Edit this at Wikidata
SATCAT no.25571
Websitescience.nasa.gov
Mission duration286 days
Mission failure
Spacecraft properties
ManufacturerLockheed Martin
Launch mass638 kilograms (1407 lb)[1]
Power500 watts
Start of mission
Launch dateDecember 11, 1998, 18:45:51 (1998-12-11UTC18:45:51Z) UTC
RocketDelta II 7425
D-264
Launch siteCCAFS SLC-17A
ContractorBoeing
End of mission
DisposalDestroyed
Last contact23 September 1999 09:06:00 (1999-09-23UTC09:07Z) UTC
Unintentionally deorbited
Orbital parameters
Reference systemAreocentric
EpochPlanned

Mars Surveyor 98 mission logo

The Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter) was a robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998, to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes and to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor '98 program for Mars Polar Lander. However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was permanently lost as it went into orbital insertion. The spacecraft encountered Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the planet, and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere or escaped the planet's vicinity and entered an orbit around the Sun.[2] An investigation attributed the failure to a measurement mismatch between two measurement systems: SI units (metric) by NASA and US customary units by spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin.[3]

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  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference cnn_lost was invoked but never defined (see the help page).