PASADENA, California On the heels of a NASA report that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), by limiting its engagement, was unable to provide oversight that might have prevented the demise of the Mars Climate Orbiter, a top JPL official pledged that things will be different next time.
In an interview, JPL Deputy Director Larry Dumas said the lab has already boosted the role it plays in the Mars Surveyor 2001 program, which includes a lander and an orbiter.
In an embarrassing 47-page NASA report released this week, the Mars Climate Orbiter investigation board found that JPL shifted much of the responsibility for the Mars Surveyor 1998 missions (including the ill-fated Polar Lander) to spacecraft contractor Lockheed Martin without providing sufficient oversight.
"What we are finding out is we just cant be overly reliant on contractors," said Art Stephenson, director of NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center and the reports author. "NASA has to be more engaged."
Declining budgets and shrinking employment have forced NASA to seek a larger role for private industry in an era of "faster, better, cheaper" programs.
But the loss of the Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander cost NASA about $400 million, prompting the American space agency to rethink its strategy for exploring Mars, including how industry participates. A report, due later this month, will lay out the changes NASA intends to make in its campaign to send two spacecraft to Mars every 26 months.
Although NASA and Lockheed are both tight-lipped about specifics in the case of the 2001 orbiter and lander which will likely be delayed until 2003 much is already being done differently on the next crop of Mars missions, Dumas said, with staffing boosted and oversight increased.
"Mars 01 is not nearly as lean in participation at JPL as was Mars 98," Dumas said.
This time around, JPL has added an operations development manager to oversee the spacecraft at each stage, from design to flight. That position did not exist in the 1998 missions, leaving a serious communication gap between the various teams at Lockheed and JPL, Stephenson said.
JPL is also sending key mission personnel back for more training and freeing up in-house experts to work as consultants.
"Weve made sure no one project can tie up these people full time," Dumas said.
In the 98 missions, JPLs management including its top experts paid scant attention to the spacecraft until they had already been launched, Dumas admitted.
"I believe it is fair to say very limited participation in the development phase of the two Mars missions was such that it wasnt big on the radar screen for the managers here," Dumas said. "And that was a big mistake."
Stephenson said that the situation led JPL to adopt a cavalier attitude toward the Climate Orbiter. After all, JPL had first sent a satellite into orbit around Mars nearly 30 years ago, with 1971s Mariner 9.
"They didnt anticipate putting a spacecraft into orbit around Mars was a big deal," he said of the $125 million Climate Orbiter, which was destroyed after a mix-up between metric and English units sent it too close to Mars as it entered orbit. "They just assumed it would work."
Dumas said JPLs expertise with a firmer managerial role in place would probably keep the $133 million 2001 orbiter on track.
"We know how to do orbiters, weve done them before," Dumas said. "With landers, though, there are still some things to be learned."
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