Launch Success
Liftoff Time (GMT)
18:45:00
Friday December 11, 1998
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While the spacecraft's intended mission was a failure due to an infamous unit conversion mistake, the launch and orbital setting of the spacecraft was successful.
The Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter) was a 338-kilogram (745 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998, to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes and to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor '98 program for Mars Polar Lander. However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was lost as the spacecraft went into orbital insertion, due to ground-based computer software which produced output in non-SI units of pound-force seconds (lbf·s) instead of the SI units of newton-seconds (N·s) specified in the contract between NASA and Lockheed. The spacecraft encountered Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the planet, and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere or re-entered heliocentric space after leaving Mars' atmosphere.
Heliocentric Orbit
1 Payload
338 kilograms
Manufacturer
ULARocket
Height: 38.1m
Payload to Orbit
GTO: 1,110 kg
Liftoff Thrust
3,020 Kilonewtons
Fairing
Diameter: 2.9m
Height: 8.49m
Stages
3
Strap-ons
4
77th
Mission
12th
Mission of 1998
78th
Orbital launch attempt