The Mars Climate Orbiter: Brought Down By Unit Conversions
Wikimedia CommonsDiagram of the mishap during the Mars Climate Orbiter mission that resulted in the loss of the spacecraft.
Traveling to a foreign country that uses a different unit system for measurements can be a minor annoyance for tourists trying to convert speed limits, temperatures, and volumes on the fly. But a mistake of this kind usually results in no more than light frustration.
However, when traveling to space, as in the case of the U.S. Mars Climate Orbiter, mistaken units can derail a multi-million dollar mission.
On December 11, 1998, the Mars Climate Orbiter had been in flight for nearly a year when it lost communication with NASA. The orbiter entered the orbit of Mars at an angle too steep, causing it disintegrate in Mars’ atmosphere.
The reason that several hundred million dollars worth of research, planning, and machinery had burnt up into dust was one little discrepancy in a unit of measurement. The software being used was measuring thruster outputs in pound-seconds, while it should have been using Newton-seconds. If the engineers had checked their units, the orbiter mission would have likely succeeded.
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