In two scathing reports released Tuesday, the failure of NASA's two latest Mars missions -- the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) -- has been attributed to a combination of bad management, a lack of training and an inadequate system of checks and balances.

NASA's Report Card

ENGINE CUTOFF DOOMED POLAR LANDER: A simple computer command might have saved NASA's Mars Polar Lander, which crashed on the surface of the RedPlanet last December after its descent engine shut down prematurely. But investigators only learned about that possible save in February. Want to Learn More?

MISMANAGEMENT BLAMED FOR NASA/JPL MARS FAILURES: NASAs succession of Mars spacecraft failures last year was reportedly the result of government and industry mismanagement, lack of oversight and inadequate checks and balances. Those charges form the foundation of a 57-page analysis, written by an 18-person Mars Program Independent Assessment Team (MPIAT). Want to Learn More?

NASAs succession of Mars spacecraft failures last year was the result of government and industry mismanagement and inadequate checks and balances. Those charges form the foundation of a 57-page report, written by an 18-person Mars Program Independent Assessment Team.

The Mars Program Independent Assessment Team (MPIAT) outlined its findings in a NASA press conference on March 28. The study itself began on January 7, 2000 and concluded with a briefing to NASA Administrator Dan Goldin on March 22.

The MPIAT review, led by former Lockheed Martin executive Thomas Young, found the Mars exploration program to be lacking in experienced managers, a test and verification program and adequate safety margins.

NASA's Mars Polar Lander Failure Review Board, chaired by former Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight operations chief John Casani, also released its report on March 28. This report said the Polar Lander probably failed due to a premature shutdown of its descent engine, causing the $165 million spacecraft to smash into the surface of Mars. It concluded more training, more management and better oversight could have caught the problem.

However, the blistering 154-page report was unable to say for certain what caused the spacecraft to mysteriously fail without a peep last December 3.