Artist's depiction of the Mars Climate Orbiter.
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of NASA
NASA Loses Climate Orbiter
News story originally written on September 27, 1999
The Mars Climate Orbiter was sent to the Red Planet to study its weather. It reached the planet last Thursday morning, but there was a problem. The satellite went too far into Mars' atmosphere, and burned up!
NASA sent the orbiter to study the planet's weather for one Mars year, or 687 days. In December, another probe called the Mars Polar Lander will land on Mars to look for water. The orbiter was going to help the lander get to the surface. Now it will have to get there by itself.
Scientists have had many problems while studying Mars. The Mars Observer was lost just before reaching Mars in 1993. The Soviet Union had a launch failure that destroyed one of their probes too.
You might also be interested in:

NASA says they caused the Mars Climate Orbiter to burn up. Scientists confused the units when finding the right orbit. The orbiter got too close to the Red Planet and blew up. The spacecraft would have
...more
It was another exciting and frustrating year for the space science program. It seemed that every step forward led to one backwards. Either way, NASA led the way to a great century of discovery. Unfortunately,
...more
The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on October 29th at 2:19 p.m. EST. The sky was clear and the weather was great. This was the America's 123rd manned space mission. A huge
...more
Scientists found a satellite orbiting the asteroid, Eugenia. This is the second one ever! A special telescope allows scientists to look through Earth's atmosphere. The first satellite found was Dactyl.
...more
The United States wants Russia to put the service module in orbit! The module is part of the International Space Station. It was supposed to be in space over 2 years ago. Russia just sent supplies to the
...more
A coronal mass ejection (CME) happened on the Sun last month. The material that was thrown out from this explosion passed the ACE spacecraft. ACE measured some exciting things as the CME material passed
...more
Trees and plants are a very important part of this Earth. Trees and plants are nature's air conditioning because they help keep our Earth cool. On a summer day, walking bare-foot on the sidewalk burns,
...more