Why did the 1999 Mars mission fail to enter orbit and crash into the surface instead?

Hamlet.

Its computers thought it had landed when actually it was still in descent...this caused all kinds of problems. To be more clear, as it was descending through Martian atmosphere to the surface, its computers thought it had landed and shut off the engine...however, this is an unproven theory of NASA's. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/nasa_pr_20000328.txt Dec 30 03, 8:01 PM

sequoianoir

That was the 2nd failure that year, and as you state, was intended to land on the surface. I'm looking for the one that should have entered orbit and stayed there. Dec 31 03, 7:07 AM

Hamlet.

In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter ended up in pieces around Mars or smashed on the planet because engineers mixed up English and metric units of measurement. Dec 31 03, 6:27 PM

sequoianoir

Yo there Hammy. Yes, it was designed and built using feet & inches and pounds & ounces (which was always the case and still is today) but when calculating scientific masses and velocites for trajectories etc NASA use kilograms and kilometres etc. Instead of arriving at an altitude of 150km for the orbit, it was more like 60km. This was almost certainly due to using pounds and not kilos in the calculation. Dec 31 03, 7:09 PM

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