Mars Surveyor '98

Mars Surveyor '98 was a NASA Mars programme made up of two separately launched spacecraft, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander, formerly called the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter and Lander. The pair was designed to study Martian weather and climate and the water and carbon dioxide budget, in order to understand the reservoirs, behaviour and atmospheric role of volatiles and to search for evidence of long-term and episodic climate change. The lander, which carried two Deep Space 2 microprobes, was meant to touch down on the southern polar layered terrain near the edge of the carbon dioxide ice cap and dig trenches to examine seasonal layers and soil. It launched on 3 January 1999 on a Delta II 7425; its last telemetry came just before atmospheric entry on 3 December 1999 and no further signals were received. Spacecraft development cost 193.1 million dollars, launch costs about 91.7 million and mission operations about 42.8 million. The programme was part of NASA's ten-year Mars Surveyor Program.