Nov 7 1996
From The Space Library
NASA spacecraft managers reported the failure of two scientific satellites. NASA had designed the Scientific Applications Satellite-B (SAC-B), launched three days earlier from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, to survey solar flares and gamma-ray bursts. The project was a cooperative effort between NASA and Argentina. NASA scientists had intended the second satellite, HETE (High Energy Transient Experiment), to remain dormant until it detected sunlight, at which time it would deploy, transmitting signals. Scientists doubted this would ever occur, because the satellite had fallen into a tumbling pattern. Officials hypothesized that the satellites had not deployed properly and, therefore, had orbited uselessly, lacking electrical power. NASA valued both satellites at more than US$20 million. The launch failure was the third miscue in two years for the Pegasus rocket program. The Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, developed and ran the program.
NASA launched into space its unpiloted Mars Global Surveyor, the first in a series of missions to explore the Red Planet further. The Mars Global Surveyor Mission and vehicle embodied a shift in the United States' approach to space exploration. With the expressed intent to make exploration as affordable and reliable as possible, NASA had developed the smaller Mars Global Surveyor, measuring 5 by 5 by 10 feet (1.5 by 1.5 by 3 meters) and designed to carry less fuel than Mars Observer. Mars Global Surveyor cost NASA US$150 million to develop, whereas Observer had cost nearly US$1 billion and had failed to reach Mars after its 1992 launch. Surveyor's ability to function with less fuel than previous models heightened the chances that it would succeed in its mission. NASA predicted that after ascending to the desired 235-mile-high (378-kilometer-high) orbit, the robotic Global Surveyor would have to travel nearly halfway around the Sun before catching up with Mars in September 1997. The spacecraft would then begin mapping the Martian atmosphere and surface, a survey planned to last 687 days. Mission objectives included searching for evidence of life on Mars, gathering data about the Martian climate, learning more about the planet's geology, and determining what resources were necessary to support future human missions to Mars. According to NASA, the search for water was the unifying theme of all missions to Mars. The Mars Global Surveyor Mission continued the exploration of Mars that NASA had begun with the Mariner and Viking missions of the 1960s and 1970s.
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