-Caveat Lector-
NASA Loses Contact With Mars Probe
By MATTHEW FORDAHL
.c The Associated Press
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - NASA's first interplanetary weather satellite failed
to re-establish contact with Earth early today after it was supposed to
complete an engine procedure to place it in orbit around Mars.
The Mars Climate Orbiter, one of two probes scheduled to arrive at the red
planet this year to study the weather and search for evidence of water,
should have regained contact with Earth at 2:26 a.m.
``We're ... not quite sure what's happening,'' said project manager Richard
Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a half-hour after the signal was to
be received on Earth.
The probe was behind the planet - and out of radio contact - during most of
the 17-minute engine firing that should have placed it in orbit. Contact
should have been established by 2:30 a.m. at the latest.
Mission organizers were scrambling to regain contact and said several
features aboard the probe were designed to reconnect it with Earth in case of
a computer shutdown or other common spacecraft problems.
``At this point, we're still confident we're going to see the spacecraft
signal in the next few hours,'' Cook said.
The orbiter and its companion, the Mars Polar Lander, carry instruments
designed to discover the fate of water believed to have once formed rivers or
lakes on the planet. Mission scientists say water is the key to determining
whether life ever existed on Mars.
The lander, which was launched separately, is due to arrive Dec. 3.
The 1,387-pound orbiter was to have fired its main engine early today,
slowing the spacecraft to 9,840 mph from its interplanetary cruising speed of
12,300 mph. Within about a half-hour, the craft was to signal that it was not
zooming past Mars or plunging to the surface.
The signal takes 11 minutes to cross the 121.9 million miles to Earth.
The craft is supposed to establish an elliptical orbit and then, over 45
days, dip into the planet's thin atmosphere and use the drag to make its
course more circular.
By mid-November, the probe was to be in a 262-mile-high orbit and ready to
relay data between Earth and the Mars Polar Lander when it arrives a few
weeks later.
Both probes are part of a $327.5 million mission collectively known as Mars
Surveyor '98, NASA's latest in a series of relatively inexpensive robot
probes. The orbiter rocketed into space last Dec. 11 and its sibling probe
was launched Jan. 3.
In 1997, Mars Pathfinder and its rover, Sojourner, explored the geology of
the planet and found some evidence that water may once have flowed. The Mars
Global Surveyor, which arrived later that year, mapped the surface and found
more signs of once-flowing water.
The Mars Climate Orbiter is equipped with two instruments that will be turned
on after the probe has finished relaying data from the lander. Observations
will continue for 687 days - a full Martian year.
The Mars Color Imager will take wide- and medium-angle snapshots of the
planet's atmosphere similar to an Earth-based weather satellite. Another
instrument called the Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer will measure
temperatures, dust, water vapor and clouds from the Martian surface to above
the horizon.
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