March 29, 2000. Copyright 2000. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

FATAL FLAWS DOOMED MARS MISSION

LONDON, March 29, Graphic News: A PREMATURE rocket engine shutdown may have doomed the Mars Polar Lander, but the core cause of the botched mission was NASA trying to do too much with too little, according to an independent report.

Thomas Young, head of the team that investigated the failure for NASA, said his group was Òalmost certainÓ that the Mars probe automatically stopped its engines early and then fell some 130 feet (40 metres), smashing into the Mars surface at about 50 miles per hour (80 km/h).

Two fatal design flaws with Mars Polar LanderÕs thrusters and landing legs had already doomed the mission prior to its arrival at the Red Planet for its 90-day mission to study the planetÕs climate and dig for frozen water beneath the surface.

Mr. Young said the engine shutdown probably was caused by a spurious signal from one of the spacecraftÕs three landing legs. ItÕs thought that the on-board computer interpreted this signal to mean the craft had landed and it then commanded the engines to stop. ÒWeÕre almost certain that if the lander got to this point (above the Mars surface), then this was the cause of the failure,Ó said Mr. Young.

However the underlying cause of the failure was pinned on Òinadequate funding and inadequate marginsÓ in the planning and execution of NASAÕs Mars exploration program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. The Mars program, Mr. Young said, Òwas underfunded by at least 30 percent.Ó

The investigation team also identified a second design flaw with the braking thrusters which failed tests during construction. But under pressure to meet NASAÕs current aim of Òfaster, better, cheaperÓ, rather than begin an expensive redesign and replacement, an unnamed space official altered the test conditions until the engine passed.

NASA officials are reported to have only realised the flaw with the $165 million probeÕs 12 descent thrusters as it was about to enter the Martian atmosphere Ð at which point it was too late to do anything about it.

The Lander disaster came less than three months after its sibling spacecraft, the Mars Climate Orbiter, was lost when Lockheed Martin Astronautics Ð the company which built the thrusters Ð failed to convert critical navigation data into metric units as specified by NASA. The $125 million orbiter probably burned up in the atmosphere.

NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin categorically denied news reports that his agency tried to cover up the problems. Mr. Goldin said stories that NASA withheld information about fatal problems with braking thrusters on the craft were incorrect. He said the agency held a public briefing on the subject in early November, nearly a month before the ship was scheduled to land on Mars.
 
ÒBecause NASA was determined that we were going to listen to the American people about doing more with less, we said we are not afraid of failure, we are not going to accept mediocrity and weÕre going to push the limits, and when we have failure we are going to be accountable,Ó Mr. Goldin said.

/ENDS
Sources: Reuters, Associated Press, UPI