Page 57 - (DK) Eyewitness - Mars

NOZOMI
Another series of mission
failures began in 1998, starting
with Japan’s Nozomi orbiter,
which was equipped to study
the Martian upper atmosphere.
The orbiter is 1.9 feet (.58 m)
high, with a dish antenna and
solar panel wings. Japanese for
“Hope,” Nozomi needed
unplanned maneuvers that
consumed too much fuel. The
craft did not make it into a
Mars orbit and instead is
orbiting the Sun.

MARS CLIMATE ORBITER
Another disappointment, this orbiter was
launched by NASA in 1998 to work with
the Mars Polar Lander (see below),
studying weather and atmosphere. Misson
controllers accidentally confused inches and
feet with metric units in calculating the
MARS OBSERVER spacecraft’s course. This sent the orbiter
The first of a series of NASA missions to study on the wrong course, and it burned up in
the geoscience and climate of Mars, Observer was the Martian atmosphere.
launched in September 1992. Objectives included
analysis of surface material and magnetic fields.
Contact was lost in August 1993, three days
before orbit was to begin. The spacecraft may
still be in Mars orbit or is orbiting the Sun.

MARS POLAR LANDER
Launched by NASA on January 3, 1999,
Mars Polar Lander carried two cylinders,
seen at bottom. They were designed to
penetrate the ground on impact. The
mission was to find evidence of water ice
and study the atmosphere. On December 3,
2000, the lander was about to descend
when it went silent. Scientists desperately
tried to reestablish contact, but its fate
remains unknown.