Question 9
Case Study: 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter Incident
The Mars Climate Orbiter was a multimillion spacecraft launched by NASA to study the climate on Mars. However, it was destroyed when it accidentally entered the Martian atmosphere. This happened as the engineers who built the spacecraft used imperial units (pounds–seconds) while the NASA team who controlled the mission used metric units (newton–seconds) to calculate the thrust force. This error caused the spacecraft to fly too close to Mars, leading to its crash.
In small groups, discuss the questions and use presentation slides or flipchart paper to present your findings to the class.
Why is it important to use the same units for measurement?
The Mars Climate Orbiter was a multimillion spacecraft launched by NASA to study the climate on Mars. However, it was destroyed when it accidentally entered the Martian atmosphere. This happened as the engineers who built the spacecraft used imperial units (pounds–seconds) while the NASA team who controlled the mission used metric units (newton–seconds) to calculate the thrust force. This error caused the spacecraft to fly too close to Mars, leading to its crash.
In small groups, discuss the questions and use presentation slides or flipchart paper to present your findings to the class.
Why is it important to use the same units for measurement?
