The $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter, illustrated here, was lost after a navigation error pushed it fatally close to the planet

September 25, 1999
Web posted at: 9:23 p.m. EDT (0123 GMT)

PASADENA, California (AP) -- The celebratory Mars candy bars lay uneaten on a desktop, not far from the computers that would have monitored the heartbeat of NASA's latest Martian probe -- if it had survived.

Sam Thurman, flight operations director for the lost Mars Climate Orbiter, fought back tears in a control room decorated with pictures of the probe and a globe of its target.

"It's tough to find the words," he said. "I guess 'devastated' would be one. And 'embarrassed.' These are publicly funded missions and everybody on the team is keenly aware that a spacecraft paid for by the taxpayers has been lost."

But Thursday's disappearance of the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter, while a sting to its scientists, isn't likely to change the agency's direction or delay future missions, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said.

Orbiter -- built in about four years on what for space exploration was a shoestring budget -- was a poster probe for NASA's policy of faster, better and cheaper solar system missions. The Mars Observer probe that vanished in 1993 cost nearly $1 billion, eight times as much as this week's loss.

"When we went forward with faster, better and cheaper, we said we were going to push the boundaries and be prepared for failure _ maybe one or two failures out of 10," Goldin said. "And that's about where we are."

NASA has launched more than 20 missions over the last five years and lost three -- including the Mars Climate Orbiter.

Another probe, the Mars Polar Lander, is scheduled to reach Mars Dec. 3.

"When there are so many missions being launched, there are going to be some failures," said Carl Pilcher, NASA's science director for solar system exploration. "It's probably an inevitable part of pushing the envelope."

But some question whether the long hours, tight deadlines and slim budgets mandated by the agency contribute to mistakes and failures.

"Whether in addition to cutting costs they're cutting corners, that's the obvious question at this point," said John Pike, director of space policy at the Federation of American Scientists.

Before Orbiter disappeared, NASA was considering some changes in its program, including creating a team to think up potential problems. On Friday, Goldin said employee workload probably should be reviewed as well.

"These people are working unbelievably intense and hard," he said. "We ought to take a look and see if maybe people are working a little too hard."

Space exploration is a challenging business, and the number of probes lost under NASA's new policy is comparable to those lost in previous years, Goldin said.

During the 1970s and 1980s, NASA launched a few behemoth probes that cost billions of dollars to develop, launch and operate. The Viking Mars missions cost $2 billion and employed about 500 people.

When the Mars Observer probe vanished in 1993, it wiped out Mars exploration for years because it was carrying all NASA's scientific eggs in one basket.

Now, there are more probes. "When we lose one, it won't be a catastrophe," said Bruce Murray, a California Institute of Technology planetary scientist and former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "There is enough going on so that the overall program remains robust."

The climate monitoring instruments lost with the Mars Climate Orbiter could be resent with future missions, launched every 26 months when the planet's positions are favorable.

"It's not an all-or-nothing program anymore," Goldin said. "It's not the last ship out of port.

"It's a question of how fast we're going to recover from this, not will we recover."

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