Mars Observer was an American robotic space probe launched by NASA on September 25, 1992, to study the surface, atmosphere, climate and magnetic field of Mars. The spacecraft was developed and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The project originated with a 1984 proposal for a new Mars mission, originally titled the Mars Geoscience Climatology Orbiter. As the first and ultimately only mission in the Planetary Observer program, its design was based on earlier Earth-orbiting satellites, including the TIROS and DMSP series. Seven scientific instruments were included.

On August 21, 1993, during the interplanetary cruise phase, communication with Mars Observer was lost, three days prior to its scheduled orbital insertion around Mars. Attempts to re-establish communications with the spacecraft were unsuccessful. Investigators concluded that the likely cause of the failure was a rupture of the fuel pressurization tank in the spacecraft's propulsion system. Several instruments designed for Mars Observer, including the Mars Orbiter Camera, were successfully flown on subsequent missions, beginning with Mars Global Surveyor in 1996.

Mission background

History

In October 1984, NASA approved a new mission to Mars, considered high priority by the Solar System Exploration Committee. The original name of the mission was the Mars Geoscience Climatology Orbiter, emphasizing the scientific goals of geology, geophysics and climatology.

Power

:Power was supplied to the spacecraft through a six-panel solar array, measuring 7.0 meters wide and 3.7 meters tall, which would provide an average of 1,147 watts when in orbit. To power the spacecraft while occluded from the Sun, two 42 A·h nickel-cadmium batteries were included; the batteries would recharge as the solar array received sunlight.

Computer

:The computing system on the spacecraft was a retooling of the system used on the TIROS and DMSP satellites. The semiautonomous system was able to store up to 2,000 commands in the included 64 kilobytes of RAM, and execute them at a maximum rate of 12.5 commands/second; commands could also provide sufficient autonomous operation of the spacecraft for up to sixty days. To record data, two digital tape recorders (DTR) manufactured by Odetics were included, each of which were capable of storing up to 187.5 megabytes for later playback to the Deep Space Network.

</references>

  • Mars Observer launch press kit
  • Mars Observer Mission Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
  • Mars Observer at NSSDC Master Catalog
  • The Loss of Mars Observer at Malin Space Science Systems.
  • NASA – Mars Observer