Talk:Mars Climate Orbiter

message: What was the cost of the mission?--155.13.48.17 21:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for deleting this post earlier. Anyway I've added a section answering this. Dan Gluck 18:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Did Lockheed Martin pay for it, since they apparently were responsible for the error that made the mission fail? --129.240.79.35 (talk) 21:14, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Cost

message: The second paragraph of the lead section says "The spacecraft would have been destroyed by atmospheric stresses and friction at this low altitude." It would have been destroyed? Don't we mean it was destroyed? --Angr (t·c) 15:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Would have been? 

message: This infamous engineering fault was perpetrated by Lockheed Martin. What were the repercussions of this error for LM? Did they have to compensate NASA for the damages in any way?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.89.0.118 (talk) 22:53, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repercussions 

message: All the time, I've always thought that NASA only uses metric units since that time... As evidence from there website, when imperial measure are present, they are only shown as secondary in paranthesis...
So if NASA is really using metric now, there's a mistake in the article, wich state that NASA sitck with imperial.
Just in case there was a mistake in the article!
--Jerem © 2002-2006 (talk) 20:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metric or imperial??? 

message: Can someone make it relevant to this article or at least MENTION it? The only thing about Lockheed Martin on the page is under the categories!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.14.172.136 (talk) 19:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lockheed Martin 

message: I suggest we changed the statement to "They fucked up and it blew up in their faces". 121.45.102.195 (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improperly Low Altitude 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: So what happened after the disintegration (burned up in the Mars atmosphere immediately, continued on (just brushed the atmosphere at high speed), or went into a (decaying) orbit)?
Shouldn't that be included in the article? --Mortense (talk) 17:47, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I have the same question as Mortense. I went to Reference 1,  Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board Phase I Report (1999), to see if it had an answer. All I found was, "As a result, MCO either was destroyed in the atmosphere or re-entered heliocentric space after leaving Mars’ atmosphere." It is understandable that the board that prepared the report didn't investigate further. The board's focus was, understandably, elsewhere. The urgent need was to prevent such mishaps. But later on, there may be some document that answers Mortense's question. Can anyone find it? Oaklandguy (talk) 07:39, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The report states that it either plunged into the atmosphere or it bounce off it. Either way, the spacecraft was damaged enough to die. Rowan Forest (talk) 01:51, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: That fully agrees with my understanding of the quote. Mortense and I have a different question: We'd like to know which of those occurred. As you recognize, that detail is far less important than the fact of failure; far less important than how to prevent future failures of this sort. But it's just a fact we're curious about. Also, in my original post, I didn't do the indent correctly -- you fixed that -- thanks! Oaklandguy (talk) 02:35, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  After disintegration 

message: > At this altitude, the spacecraft would likely have skipped violently off the denser-than-expected atmosphere,[citation needed] and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere, or re-entered heliocentric space.
Specifically referencing "The spacecraft would likely have skipped violently off the denser-than-expected atmosphere"
The statement itself (which was given the [citation needed] tag in 2018 because there is no direct reference in the 1999 mishap report) is not technically incorrect to my understanding of orbital physics. Reading the report, no judgement is directly passed on which of the two outcomes was "likely" as written in the article, nor any language directly stating the intensity of such a maneuver. To my knowledge, yes, it is possible, and yes, it would be "violent" but the statement in the article is speculating beyond the scope of listed references. I personally would love to find a source that validates the [citation needed], at least in part, but I think that the statement should be modified to be "At this altitude, the spacecraft may have skipped off the denser-than-expected atmosphere,[citation needed] and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere, or re-entered heliocentric space." or just an outright removal of the statement about the potential skip. 
Just wanted people's thoughts before making an edit to the article. Javacat1 (talk) 16:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification within Cause of Failure section thoughts