The Flickr Deltaii7425 Image Generatr

Description: KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Looking like a Roman candle, the exhaust from the Boeing Delta II rocket with the Mars Polar Lander aboard lights up the clouds as it hurtles skyward. The rocket was launched at 3:21:10 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 17B, Cape Canaveral Air Station. The lander was a solar-powered spacecraft designed to touch down on the Martian surface near the northern-most boundary of the south polar cap, which consists of carbon dioxide ice. The lander was going to study the polar water cycle, frosts, water vapor, condensates and dust in the Martian atmosphere. Unfortunately, after Mars Polar Lander executed the landing sequence on Mars on December 3, 1999, it failed to resume communication. Analysis of the mission suggests that the jolt of deployment of the landing legs was mistaken by the probe as touchdown on the surface. This would have led to the shutdown of the landing rockets and a 40 meter drop to the surface that disabled Mars Polar Lander.

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Credit: NASA
Image Number: KSC-99PC-0 7
Date: January 3, 1999

The Mars Surveyor '98 program is comprised of two spacecraft launched separately, the Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter) and the Mars Polar Lander (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander). The two missions were to study the Martian weather, climate, and water and carbon dioxide budget, in order to understand the reservoirs, behavior, and atmospheric role of volatiles and to search for evidence of long-term and episodic climate changes. The Mars Climate Orbiter was launched on December 11, 1998 on a Delta II Lite launcher from LC-17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. The probe was destroyed upon arrival at Mars on September 23, 1999, when a navigation error caused it to miss its target altitude at Mars by 80 to 90 km. Instead of going into orbit around the planet it entered the martian atmosphere at an altitude of 57 km during the orbit insertion maneuver. Atmospheric stresses and friction destroyed the probe and any remnants are presumably on the surface of Mars.

NASA Media Usage Guidelines

Credit: NASA
Image Number: KSC-98PC-1838
Date: December 11, 1998