Mars Observer Fails

Even though he had had to shut down the Exploration (i. e., Moon-Mars) office at NASA and move its associate administrator, Michael Griffin (a later NASA Administrator), to a new role, Goldin wanted to sustain the humans-to-Mars goal. His struggle to save the space station and zeal to reinvent NASA were in fact partly for the purpose of making the agency more capable of leading

America to Mars. With his background in robotic space technology, he saw that he could keep the Mars human spaceflight goal alive through the robotic Mars program.

Goldin had mixed views of Mars Observer. He called it an example of a Battlestar Galactica mission, the kind he eschewed, but it was too far along to change. In fact, it was heading toward Mars, and a lot rode on it. In addition to providing a mass of scientific data to the Mars research community, Observer was a stepping stone toward future robotic trips to the Red Planet. Russian scientists wished to use the maps of Mars that Observer would yield so they would know where to land missions they scheduled for 1994 and 1996. Russian and French researchers were planning to use a relay system on the U. S. Mars Observer to transmit up to 10 times the data that the Russian orbiter to be launched in 1996 could handle. Observer’s results could also feed into MESUR’s design.22 And, longer term, Mars Observer was the beginning of NASA’s return to Mars and eventual human journey. This was the exploration strategy of which Huntress had written in proclaiming a new Mars era.

Of the many scientists and engineers associated with Mars Observer, none waited more expectantly than Mike Malin. His camera was aboard and was central to the mission, thanks to a “command” decision made years before by Associate Administrator Edelson. So committed was Malin that he had left JPL and an academic position to set up a company so he could dedicate himself to building the camera. He thought of it as his eye. And through it, he would soon be looking at Mars.23 Other scientists and engineers at JPL and the universities also had devoted a large chunk of their careers and professional lives to this mission.

At 6 p. m. (PDT), August 21, 1993, Mars Observer was three days away from going into orbit around the Red Planet. Suddenly, JPL lost communication with the probe. As controllers at JPL worked feverishly to reestablish contact, word of the mishap flashed throughout JPL, NASA, and the Mars community. In succeeding days, anxiety mounted, and then gloom. “It’s difficult to work on something for 10 years, and expect to work on something for another 5 years and have it disappear,” said Philip Christensen of Arizona State University, one of Observer’s principal investigators. NASA planetary geologist James Garvin, who worked on the spacecraft’s laser altimeter experiment, said, “Basically, it’s my entire scientific professional career.”24

Garvin’s personal devastation was worsened by an experience soon after when he returned to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Mary­land, where he worked. He went to the mall near Goddard with his wife. Prior to the loss of communication with Mars Observer, those associated with the mission wore “Mars Observer hats” for good luck that never came. “For some reason,” Garvin recalled, he wore his hat to the mall. “Someone came up to me, a stranger. He accosted me. He said: ‘How dare you wear your hat. It is a sign of failure!’”25