Mars Climate Orbiter
Delta 7425-9.5
United States Air Force
Mission
Mars Climate Orbiter
Type: Robotic Exploration
The Mars Surveyor ’98 program is comprised of two spacecraft launched separately, the MCO (Mars Climate Orbiter, formerly the Mars Surveyor ’98 Orbiter) and the MPL (Mars Polar Lander, formerly the Mars Surveyor ’98 Lander). The two missions were to study the Martian weather, climate, and water and carbon dioxide budget, in order to understand the reservoirs, behavior, and atmospheric role of volatiles and to search for evidence of long-term and episodic climate changes. The Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed when a navigation error caused it to miss its target altitude at Mars by 80 to 90 km, instead entering the Martian atmosphere at an altitude of 57 km during the orbit insertion maneuver.
Trajectory
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Location
Space Launch Complex 17A
Cape Canaveral, FL, USA
903 rockets have launched from Cape Canaveral, FL, USA.
Agency
United States Air Force – USAF
- Type: Government
- Abbreviation: USAF
- Administration: Commander-in-Chief: President of the US
- Founded: 1947
- Country: USA
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947.
