The House’s chief overseer of NASA on Wednesday blamed mismanagement for two failed Mars missions but stopped short of calling for changes in the space agency’s leadership. An independent review of the missions, which both failed in 1999, concluded last month that they failed because of inadequate testing, inexperienced staff, poor communication and insufficient funds. But Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., said those problems could have been avoided had management paid more attention to tests, employee training and budget management.
March 24th, 2000
Photos show Mars’ terrain too rugged for NASA’s landers
Most terrain of scientific interest on Mars is too rugged for the small landing craft NASA has been sending, extensive new photographs indicate.
March 13th, 2000
NASA’s Mars failures put under microscope
The cheaper, faster, better strategy that successfully propelled NASA to Mars with a small roving robot three years ago crumbled just as spectacularly because it took success for granted, according to two reports released by the agency Monday.
January 30th, 2000
Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn to put on a show for earthlings
February opens with a planetary parade as Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn line up in the evening sky as though for review by the waxing moon. On the evening of Feb. 8 look for Mars to the right of the moon. Mars is the dimmest of the parading planets at magnitude 1.2.
December 9th, 1999
Editorial: No time to stop venturing out into the universe
SOMEWHERE in the cold desolation near the south pole of Mars, apparently oblivious to the frantic efforts of earthlings to contact it, there is a lost spacecraft. Barring some stroke of remarkable luck in establishing contact, we may never know what went wrong on the Mars Polar Lander.
December 3rd, 1999
Local space buffs gather for disappointing Mars party
More than a thousand miles from the stone-faced scientists waiting for the Mars Polar Lander to return a signal Friday afternoon, a similarly quiet gathering of about 150 space aficionados and curious onlookers at Rice University expressed hope that the spacecraft was not destroyed. Chris Barnes, president of the Mars Society of Houston, tried to describe the rapt audience that waited in silence for 10 minutes as the probe failed to send out a signal.
November 8th, 1999
Mars probe to get brake check
Spacecraft engineers hope to head off a potential problem with the small rockets that are to slow a small Mars probe for landing at the planet’s south pole, NASA said Monday.
September 23rd, 1999
Experts say Mars failures are worth every last dollar
The temperature on its rocky surface is below zero. At its farthest point in orbit, it is 249 million miles away from Earth. And, so far as anyone knows, there isn’t a McDonald’s restaurant on the place.
September 23rd, 1999
Mars devours NASA spacecraft
After a trouble-free, 9 1/2-month voyage from Earth, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter disappeared early Thursday as it was maneuvering into orbit around the Red Planet.
September 23rd, 1999
Mars probe’s predecessor lost in similar circumstances
The loss of contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter early Thursday just as it circled behind the red planet recalls the similar loss in 1993 of an earlier unmanned spacecraft, the Mars Observer.