Volgens onafhankelijk onderzoek is de mislukking van de Mars Polar Lander missie het gevolg van slecht functionerende remrakketjes. Deze bleken in het extreem koude space klimaat niet juist te onbranden waardoor zij onvoldoende performance gaven. De fout kwam pas enkele dagen voor de landing aan het licht en kon derhalve niet gefixt worden:
Nasa engineers knew about a fatal design flaw with the Mars Polar Lander's braking thrusters but kept it secret, leaked information claims. It follows persistent rumours that the disappearance of the MPL spacecraft last December was no surprise to Nasa officials.[...] Tests apparently showed that the system used to ignite the craft's hydrazine fuel could not operate effectively at the cold temperatures expected during the flight to Mars. This would seriously have compromised the performance of the thrusters.
But rather than begin an expensive redesign and replacement program, an unnamed space official is said by the source to have altered the test conditions to make it look as though the engines would perform in the conditions expected.
According to the UPI news agency, senior Nasa officials only realised the flaw in MPL's thrusters a few days before the landing was to take place on 3 December - when it was too late to do anything about it.
Dus daar ligt begraven onze lieve 350 miljoen gulden kostende Polar Lander, weerloos slachtoffer van een moedwillige poging tot doodslag:
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Check dit artikel van BBC News voor het complete verhaaltje.