The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1958, the latest event was in 1999
Human Spaceflight:
1985 – LANDING: STS-61-B (Atlantis), Edwards AFB
Military and Classified Programs:
1976 – Negotiations completed between USAF SAMSO and Martin Marietta for the purchase of eight additional Titan III vehicles ($79.35 million)
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1973 – Pioneer 10 fly-by of Jupiter
1999 – Contact lost with LM Mars Polar Lander (and experimental JPL DS2A & DS2B probes) at the time of Entry/Descent/Landing at Mars
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
NONE
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1956 – LAUNCH: Lockheed X-17, LC3, CCAFS
1969 – LAUNCH: GD Atlas F, 576-A1, VAFB
Other:
1958 – Jet Propulsion Laboratory transferred from Army to NASA management
1971 – MM Mark IV Monorail (Yellow) delivered, Walt Disney World
The photo today is an artist’s conception of MPL. This was the sixth major failure of an LM product in 1999. Mars Polar Lander and two small companion impact probes known as DS2A and DS2B failed to communicate after the start of Entry/Descent/Landing. The official NASA failure investigation report blamed the failure on premature shutdown of the descent engine when the landing legs were deployed (a software logic error, coupled with Hall Effect transducers, that would not be a problem ~ 60% of the time). This, however, does not explain the failure of the two DS probes, which were intended to send back information after slamming into the surface. Also, no debris from MPL has ever been imaged on the surface of Mars by MRO. The team that designed Mars Phoenix Lander came to the conclusion that MPL and probes never properly separated from the cruise stage due to excessive cold temperatures of the separation connectors (this is very top-level info that I got doing interviews and putting together a detailed study of the MCO and MPL failures when I was still working. The detailed studies are archived at Lockheed Martin).
