1. 1
Nabilahmed Patel
1001234817
November 24, 2015.
CSE 5325 Section 003.
Evaluation of the Report Published by NASA on
the Loss of the Mars Polar Lander and Deep
Space 2 Missions

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Table of Contents
1. ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATION...................................................................................... 3
2. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 4
3. SUMMARY....................................................................................................................... 5
A. Bidding Environment..................................................................................................... 5
B. Bidding Effects and Staffing ........................................................................................... 6
C. Effects of Baselines on Decisions.................................................................................... 7
D. Risks and how they taken care of .................................................................................. 7
E. Unethical behavior........................................................................................................ 8
4. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 9
5. BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................11

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1. ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATION
CDR Critical Design Review
DS-2 Deep Space-2
EDL Entry Decent Landing
FBC Faster Better Cheaper
FTA Fault Tree Analysis
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory
LMA Lockheed Martin Astronautics
MCO Mars Climate Orbiter
MPL Mars Polar Lander
MSP Mars Surveyor Program
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
PDR Preliminary Design Review

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2. INTRODUCTION
As the part of the NASA’s Mars Surveyor Program (MSP) – under the Mars Surveyor
’98 mission, Mars Polar Lander (MPL) and two Deep Space 2 (DS2) probes were launched
using a single launched vehicle from Kennedy Space Center on January 3, 1999 to gather
climate data from the ground in conjunction with Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO). MCO was
launched on 11 December 1998 for arrival at Mars on 23 September 1999. MCO was
designed to operate in a polar orbit for up to five years to study the weather and serve as a
telecommunications relay link for MPL and other missions. Five minutes into Mars Orbit
Insertion, MCO was occulted by Mars and contact was never re-established. Lockheed
Martin Astronautics (LMA) was the prime contractor for Mars Surveyor ’98 mission and the
mission was managed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and California Institute of
Technology.
MPL approached Mars on December 3, 1999 as expected. Upon arrival at Mars,
communications ended according to a plan as the three spacecraft prepared to enter the
Martian atmosphere. Communications were scheduled to resume after the lander and the
probes were on the surface. It was expected that the first data from the DS2 probes would be
received on 4 December at 7:25 p.m. PST, about 7 hours after MPL touchdown. However, no
communications from MPL or the probes were received. Attempts to communicate with MPL
continued until the first two weeks of February without success. In between, on 16 December
1999, in accordance with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) policy, the Laboratory Deputy
Director appointed a Special Review Board (the Board) to examine the loss of MPL and DS2.
The Board included members from JPL, industry, and academia.
This paper depicts the interesting findings of investigators given in “Mars Polar
Lander/Deep Space 2 Loss — JPL Special Review Board Report” in the Summary section
and based on that explains what could have been done differently in Conclusion section.

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3. SUMMARY
A. Bidding Environment
In 1995, Mars Surveyor program (MSP) began as a set of missions designed with
limited objectives, low costs, and frequent launches. From the beginning, the MPL project
was under tight funding, schedule pressure and consisting great complexity and technical
challenges. Hence, all the three baselines were strictly bounded. As a consequence, the
project fell under the situation where trade-off between 2 categories – project staffing and key
technical decisions was imminent.
This diagram illustrates the overly constrained situation that characterized the Mars ’98 project.
B. Bidding effect on organizations and staff assignment
In order to meet the baselines, the Laboratory decided to manage the project with a
small JPL team and to rely heavily on LMA’s management and engineering structure.
Consequently, there was essentially no JPL line management involvement or visibility into
the project and minimal involvement by JPL technical experts. LMA used excessive overtime
in order to complete the work on schedule and within the available workforce. As a result of
tight funding, many key technical areas were staffed by a single individual, which resulted in
effect of inadequate peer interaction. To sum up, there was a constraint on all the three
baselines – cost, schedule and technical.

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C. Effects of Baselines on decisions
To meet this constraint on baselines, some key decisions made early were, use off-the-
shelf hardware components and inherited designs to the maximum extent possible, no
resources would be expended on efforts that did not directly contribute to landing safely on
the surface of Mars, use analysis and modelling as an acceptable lower-cost approach to
system test and validation. These decisions were looked sound, but it was found by the Board
that a few decisions might have been resulted in unanticipated consequences (risks).
D. Risks and how they were taken care of if at all
The decision to use pulse-mode control for the descent engines instead of developing
and qualifying a throttle valve introduced risks in the propulsion, mechanical, and control
areas. The lander configuration required at least two canted engines in each of three locations
for stability and control. The project elected to use four smaller off-the-shelf engines at each
location. The project was using analysis and modelling instead of testing, when possible. The
project decided not to provide EDL telemetry. The propulsion system employed analysis as a
substitute for test in the verification and validation of total system performance.
Some of the known risks were addressed and few of them were taken care of. For
example, the risks in the mechanical and thrusters areas were dealt with satisfactorily, the
risks in the dynamics and control area were not completely retired and should have been
more fully addressed through analysis and test, risk due to using four smaller engines was not
addressed, where risk of using analysis and modelling instead of testing was addressed but
was not taken care of, due to this the end-to-end validation of the system through simulation
and other analyses was potentially compromised in some areas. Some of unknown risks were
usage of omni antenna which reduced the ability to get health and safety engineering data in
an anomalous landed configuration, avoiding the use of EDL telemetry due to which after
loss of MPL there was not any clues for future projects.

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E. Unethical behavior
The project did not have a documented review plan, but did hold many reviews.
Subsystem Preliminary and Critical Design Reviews (PDRs and CDRs) were conducted till
the appropriate depth and breadth of technical oversight, which for the most part were
thorough and well documented, but some of the PDRs and CDRs were not included in depth
penetration and peer reviews were conducted in only some areas. Project management had a
mission assurance person track all review actions and see that written closures were obtained
and approved at the usual levels. In the case of the propulsion Subsystem a delta review
should have been held but was not.
The subsystem PDRs and CDRs were adequate to identify most of the technical issues.
The closures for all the actions and recommendation were approved prior to launch without
any independent technical support by reviewers. There was no substantive technical
assessment of the closures in many areas; the JPL technical support was minimal, and LMA
did not have their closures reviewed by Board members or non-project LMA personnel. The
appropriate concerns were raised in the reviews; the actions taken by the project did not
adequately address the concerns in all cases. The systems engineering resources were
insufficient to meet the needs of the project. Fault-Tree Analysis (FTA) was treated
inconsistently. In some cases, consideration of potential failure modes was not adequately
assessed. The review process mentioned in the above passage and the behavior of the
responsible personnel for review process described in this passage clearly points out the
finger towards the unethical behavior of members of a review team.

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4. CONCLUSION
Mars Surveyor ’98 mission was in FBC category. Management team was given
insufficient guidance as to proper implementation of FBC. It is important in such a situation
that institutional management closely monitors project implementation. In FBC, faster does
not mean arbitrarily reducing development and implementation time. It means reducing cycle
time by eliminating inefficient or redundant processes. This must be done carefully to
accomplish necessary tasks in the most efficient manner possible.
This diagram illustrates the striking contrast in cost between successful and
unsuccessful FBC Mars projects. It is implied from this diagram that such projects where the
funding is insufficient, should not be proceeded with.
FBC implies taking prudent risks. The increased mission risk on FBC missions resulting
from the use of new technology, innovation, or through the pursuit of important science
objectives is acceptable when justified by the return. Increased risk is not acceptable when it
is caused by inadequate design and review, incomplete testing, or mission goals that are
unachievable within the allowed budget and schedule. In all cases,risksshould be evaluatedand
weighedagainstthe expectedreturnandacknowledgedatall levelsbymanagement.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Project
MGS
Pathfinder
MCO
MPL

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More number of experts could have been included to efficiently manage the schedule
constraint. Another recommendation for countering schedule constraint could be indulgence
in parallel working. Manager looks at activities that are normally done in sequence and assign
them totally or partially in parallel. A team can start constructing solutions in areas where it
feels the design in pretty solid without waiting for the entire design to be completed.
The most flagrant negligence that happened during the course of the project was unethical
behavior. A more ethical disposition could be to make JPL involved in technical assessment more
then what is actually was. Various reviews that were held, for example the PDR and the CDR, should
have been conducted in a planned manner incorporating a more formal approach, and the plan should
have been documented. Peer reviews form an important part of review process and should have been
conducted by non-LMA individuals. Commitment, while important, must not overshadow an
objective assessment and reporting of risk. This requires responsible intervention by senior
management. Mission readiness must take priority over launch window.
The reasons of failures are still unknown, but from the findings elaborated in summary
one can certainly conclude that it was mix result of unethical behavior, insufficient system
engineering, inadequate testing, incomplete reviews, severe constraint on baselines and partly
improper design philosophy. Some of the proven engineering and management practices to
maximize mission success are – clear lines of responsibility and authority should be
established at the initiation of each project, competent and efficient reviews of projects by
experts from outside the projects and outside the implementing institutions should provide
overall assessment of the projects and a thorough evaluation of risks, membership on review
panels should remain constant throughout the development and implementation of each
project, do not oversight Single Human Mistake, do efficient and proper Fault Tree
Analysis/Failure Effects and Criticality Analysis, always use the concept of Test-As-You-
Fly/Fly-As-You-Test.

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5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wysocki Robert. Effective Software Project Management, Danvers: Wiley
Publishing Inc., 2006:546
Hans van Vliet. Software Engineering: Principles and Practice.
Wiley Publishing Inc., 2007:41
Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Images of Mars from the Surface of the Red Planet! Mars
Pathfinder Mission. N.p., 25 July 1997. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.
JPL Special Review Board. Report on the Loss of the Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space – 2
Missions. 2000:1-151