Lockheed Martin Astronautics

The problem arose because two teams working on the Mars mission were using different sets of units. NASA s scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, assumed that the thrust data for the rockets on the Orbiter they received from Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, which built the spacecraft, were in metric units. In reality, the units were English. As a result the Orbiter dipped 100 kilometers lower into the Mars atmosphere than planned and the friction from the atmosphere caused the craft to burn up. 

The intention of the Green Book ever since its appearance was not to present a list of recommendations as commandments, but rather its aim was and still is to help the user in what may be called a good practice of scientific language . Many well-established conventions are used in science and technology, but mixing conventions can lead to misunderstandings or even cause severe errors. One of those errors, caused by confusion of metric and imperial units, led to the loss of the NASA Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) in 1999, worth about 200 Million USD of equipment and a non-quantified loss of scientific data and work. The reason for tlie loss of MCO was that Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA) software used imperial units (Ibf s) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory expected output from the LMA software... 

Figure B.l shows the hierarchical control model of the accident, or at least those parts that can be gleaned from the official accident report. Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA) was the prime contractor for the mission. The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center Launch Directorate (SMC) was responsible for insight and administration of the LMA contract. Besides LMA and SMC, the Defense Contract Management Command (DCMC) played an oversight role, but the report is not clear about what exactly this role was beyond a general statement about responsibility for contract management, software surveillance, and overseeing the development process.

Components of the Physical Process The Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA) Titan rv B is a heavy-lift space launch vehicle used to carry government payloads such as Defense Support Program, Milstar, and National Reconnaissance Office satellites into space. It can carry up to 47,800 pounds into low-earth orbit and up to... 

---