Setbacks

NASA Chief: Future Mars Mission in Doubt
CNN, December 8, 1999

The presumed failure of the Mars Polar Lander mission means that two Mars spacecraft have been lost in three months, a stunning blow prompting NASA to examine its entire Mars program and possibly delay future flights, space agency chief Dan Goldin said. The last realistic opportunity to contact the lander came and went Tuesday with no response. The spacecraft has not been in radio contact with Earth since its descent into the atmosphere of Mars on Friday.

NASA Moves Ahead on Plans for Mars 2003 Mission
December 9, 1999

While aftershocks from the back-to-back losses of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander are reverberating throughout NASA, managers for future Mars missions are continuing to plan and build the spacecraft that are next in line to rocket to Mars. One of the major objectives of the missions planned for launch in 2001, 2003 and 2005 is to begin scouting for eventual human missions to the planet. Now NASA has provisionally selected four instrument packages to do much of this advance work from the 2003 Mars lander. The experiments, which will fill a $32-million payload aboard the spacecraft, will attempt to study radiation dangers on Mars, search for signs of life, examine dust devils and possible electrical storms and demonstrate that breathable air and rocket fuel can be produced from the planet's carbon dioxide atmosphere.