Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

Loss of Mars Polar Lander
December 3, 1999 in the vicinity of space Mars
Masayuki Nakao (Institute of Engineering Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo)
NASA ( U.S. National Aer onautics and Space Administration) los t contact wi th its spacecraft “ Mars P olar
Lander ( MPL)” j ust prior to it s scheduled atmospheric ent ry and landing on th e south polar regi on o f Mars.
Communication was never regained. It is assumed that the MPL’s legs contact sensor tripped during descent,which signaled false indication that the spacecraft had landed, resulting in a premature shutdown of the engines
40 meters ab ove the s urface. MPL cr ashed on the Martian s urface, and i ts two Deep S pace 2 Mi croprobes(DS2) were presumably destroyed upon impact.

Figure 1. Artist’s Concept of Mars Polar Lander [5]1. Event
NASA lost contact with the spacecraft “Mars Polar Lander (MPL)” just prior to its scheduled atmosphericentry and la nding in the so uth-polar region of Mars. The P olar Lander was carrying two De ep S pace 2(DS2) Microprobes designed to study the Martian weather, climate, and water and carbon dioxide levels. Itis n ot k nown whether the lander r eached the t erminal descent pr opulsion phase. The microprobes w ere
never located.
2. Course
NASA launched MPL on January 3, 1999.
After a 11-month travel (7.57 million km) to Mars, MPL was about to enter the Mars’ atmosphere in theearly morning of December 3 . To lan d on the so uth polar region o f Mar s, a f inal t rajectory-correction
maneuver was executed 6.5 hours before entry.
After it s initial h igh-speed ent ry int o the M artian atmosphere, t he MP L’s des cent p lan w as a s follo ws.
1

Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases(Figure 2 illustrates the entry, descent and landing phase of MPL.)
At about an altitude of 7.5 km to landing, while the Lander was still moving at 250 km/sec, it would deploy
its 8 .4-meter-wide parachute. Although the par achute would s ubstantially slo w th e d escent, i t w ould beunable to s low it below 80 m/sec i n M ars’ thin at mosphere. 10 s econds a fter parachute dep loyment, theheat shield w ould be released to cr ash onto the surf ace s o that the fr iction produced by the Martian
atmosphere would quickly decelerate the vessel from its initial velocity. 16 seconds after the release of theheat shield, the MPL’s three legs, folded up to fit inside the shield, would swing down and latch in position.
When the Lander was about 18 00 meters above the surface and descending at 80 m/sec, the parachute andbackshell would separate from MPL, and in 0.5 seconds, the three clusters of landing thrusters would startfiring. The engine thrust would be modulated during the remaining descent in accord with data from theprobe’s multi-beam landing radar to gradually slow the vessel to a gentle 2.4 m/sec final descent.

Figure 2. MPL’s Entry, Descent and Landing Phase [1]At 12:02 pm PST (U.S. Pacific Standard Time), MPL entered the atmosphere. The high temperature fromthe heat during MPL’s descent in the atmosphere closed off the communication signal with the Earth. MPL
touchdown was expected at 12:14 pm PST, with a data transmission to Earth scheduled to begin 24 minutes
later. However, no communication from MPL was received.
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After detaching from MPL, the two DS2 probes were to extend and drill deeper into the ground to search
for water as shown in Figure 3. The first data from the DS2 probes was expected to reach the Earth at 7:25
pm PS T o n Dece mber 4, ab out 7 h ours after MPL t ouchdown. How ever, no co mmunication fro m th eprobes was received.

Figure 3. DS2 Entry, Descent, and Impact Sequence with Potential Failure Modes [2]3Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

3. Cause(1) Accidental tripping of the MPL’s landing legs contact sensors during descent
NASA concluded that the MPL’s onboard systems confused the jolt from the deployment of a l anding
leg w ith g round contact, and s hutdown the engin es prematurely at 40 meters a ltitude d own to t heactual landing. MPL was assumed to have crashed on the Martian surface at 22 m/sec (about 80 km/h).
(2) A design flaw in the ground-contact switch system
When the MPL’s landing legs first swung down to lock into position after the release of the heat shield,
sufficient for ce on fl exible par ts of th e legs bounced the leg s upw ards again, and t riggered theground-contact switch to send false indicator signals to the computer system.
The Failure Review Board for the Mars Polar Lander discovered that th is event repeated consistently
in lab tests af ter the in cident. S uch behavior, ho wever, was nev er detected during MP L’s prel aunchtests, because different teams conducted MPL’s tests before and after the legs’ fold-down procedure.
(3) While t he above caus e w as the most likely scenar io, sever al o ther ev ents w ere s till possible. MPL
might have burnt out in the Martian atmosphere, or it might have failed to land properly on the rugged
Martian terrain.
4. Immediate Action
NASA first assumed that the communication antenna was not pointed towards the earth, or a minor troublecaused t he c omputer to e nter a te mporary “sle ep” mode a nd tr ied to sen d signals to chan ge the ant enna
angles or wait for the computer to “wake.”NASA also used the Mars Global Surveyor satellite orbiting Mars in an attempt to communicate with MPL,
however, all attempts failed. On January 17, 2000, NA SA ended the intermittent search for MPL and theDS2 microprobes.
NASA appointed Thomas Young, a pr evious executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Corp., to cha ir
the M ars P rogram I ndependent Assessment T eam co mprised of 18 a erospace s cientists a nd review thefailure.
NASA canceled its 2001 Mars Surveyor Program to launch a lander with lan ding gears similar to the oneon the lost MPL.
5. Countermeasure
Unknown.
6. Summary
The cost of s pace dev elopment is enormous and ef forts to cut the c ost are n ecessary. NAS A, however,should have clarified where it can cut the cost or n ot (at the technology level at the time), otherwise, cost
reduction can directly link to a failure and all the expenses can go down the drain.
4Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases
The sp ecial antenna for co mmunication dur ing des cent w as tak en of f t o cut th e cos t a nd MPL’scommunication wi th ea rth was never re established after i t was cut of f 12 min utes pr ior t o l anding.
Accordingly, there were no data to tell if the planned sequence of processes were carried out and where in
the course a malfunction happened.
The MPIAT report findings included the following:• The 1998 Mars Surveyor Program, which comprised launches of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars
Polar Lander, was challenged by inadequate budget cost-caps and was significantly underfunded by 30%.
• The DS2 development had competent, but inexperienced, project managers.
• Senior m anagement wi th y ears of ex perience at NA SA Headquarters, JP L, and Loc kheed Mar tin
Astronautics failed to have the follower managers acquire proper management skills.
• The lack of device for communication during the entry, descent, and landing data for MPL was a major
design mistake.
• The DS2 microprobes had unprofessional designs and were put through an inadequate test program; they
were not at all ready for the mission.
• The p rogram was si gnificantly un derstaffed. The de velopment te am o f g overnment an d civil workers
overworked, sometimes 60 to 80 hours a week.
7. Knowledge(1) Modifications to cut cost have the danger of turning into a cause of failure
To achieve a soft landing, Lunar Surveyors and Viking were equipped with a radar altimeter to control
the final approach to the landing site. Terminal descent engines were designed to shutdown at 3 meterson the r adar altimeter readings. The MP L landing system was s implified so the ter minal d escentengines wo uld shutd own as soon as the on board sy stems re ceived a grou nd-contact sig nal f rom alanding leg.
(2) Multiple team operations have pitfalls in the boundary area among teams.
(3) Adequate funding, staffing and scheduling are critical to successful program implementation.
Such co st-cutting sometime s su cceed, howe ver, blindly believing in t hem sh ould be avoided. A
successful experience in cost-cutting can encourage skipping necessary processes and lead to failure.
(4) Giving low priority in transfer of technologies and management skills lead to failures.
8. BackgroundNASA Administrator Daniel Goldin implemented the Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC) philosophy in 1992 inresponse to budget reductions. He stopped repeating 10s of years projects with huge budgets and started toencourage subletting t asks to c ontractors an d c ivil-service wor kforce so t hat the agen cy coul d shor ten
development time, reduce cost, and increase the scientific return by flying more missions in less time.
Developed in accord with this FBC approach, the Mars Pathfinder lander and rover successfully reached
the rocky terrain of the Martian equator on July 1997. Two months later, the camera-equipped Mars Global
5Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases
Surveyor or biter suc cessfully reached M ars and con tinues to send images of unprecedented detail to theEarth.
However, the FBC effort was undermined by inadequate funding. The 1998 Mars Surveyor Program only
had abou t half of the successf ul Mar s Pat hfinder lander and Mar s Global S urveyor or biter miss ions,significantly underfunded by a t lea st 3 0%. Th e numb er of r esident JPL (Jet Prop ulsion Lab oratory i nPasadena, California) staff was reduced to 15. One third of previous staff was allocated to the flight control
team o f three Ma rs Surve yor Prog rams (Mars Gl obal Surve yor, Ma rs Clim ate Orbi ter a nd Ma rs Pola r
Lander). Preflight testing was inadequate. The loss of Mars Polar Lan der followed the mission failure ofMars Climate Orbiter, which was launched on December 11, 1998 and lost in deep space due to suspectednavigational errors on September 23, 1999.
References[1] Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board (2000) Report on Project Management in NASA, March13, 2000, NASA.
[2] JPL S pecial Re view Bo ard ( 2000) Report on the Loss of the Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2Missions, March 22, 2000, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.
[3] AstroAr ts Inc., http://www.astroarts.co.jp[4] Mars Program Independent Ass essment T eam (2000) Mars Program Independent Assessment Team
Summary Report, March 14, 2000, NASA.
[5] Science @ NASA (1999) “Mars Polar Lander Nears Friday Touchdown”, December. 3, 1999, NASA,
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast03dec99_1.htm[6] Report of the Failure Review Board for the Mars Polar Lander, March 28, 2000.

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