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 NASA Launch Commentator: "3.2.1. we have ignition 

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 and we have liftoff of NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter as we continue to explore the 

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 mysteries of the Red Planet." 

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 On December 11. 1998. NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was launched from 

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 Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:45 pm. Eastern Time. 

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 Riding atop a Boeing Delta II rocket. the satellite spent the next nine months travelling to 

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 the Red Planet. 

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 Mars Climate Orbiter was the first of a pair of spacecraft launched separately in the Mars 

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 Surveyor '98 Project. 

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 The satellite's first order of business upon arrival at Mars was to provide support to its 

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 companion spacecraft. Mars Polar Lander. 

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 The pair were sent to study the Martian weather. climate. and the water and carbon 

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 dioxide budget. Mars Climate Orbiter was designed to function as an interplanetary 

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 weather satellite and a communications relay for Mars Polar Lander. 

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 Unfortunately. the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft failed to achieve orbit around Mars. 

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 Contact with the satellite was lost on arrival on September 23. 1999. Engineers concluded 

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 that the spacecraft entered the planet's atmosphere too low and probably burned up. 

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