[X] My Assistant

[Phil Stooke]

I like asking questions, and where better than a place like this?

So here's one... Mars Climate Orbiter burned up during a too-low pass through the atmosphere. So where would its debris have fallen?

This ought to be a fairly straightforward question to answer. We presumably know, or can find, the details of its trajectory as it approached Mars. We know the orientation of Mars at the time. The location of periapsis in Mars coordinates ought to be easy to find. This might be buried in a technical report somewhere, or it might be possible to figure it out with one of the solar system simulator type programs. Can anybody help answer this?

(if so, we can extend it to Pioneer Venus and Magellan later in a separate thread)

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I'd like to thank everybody for these comments. Very useful.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not any fragments of MCO fell to the surface, let me rephrase my question: Where in Mars lat/long was the closest approach? So if it just sailed on by, where was it at its lowest altitude? Do we know that? That, I suppose, is what I was thinking of initially when I said it ought to be fairly easy to find or figure out.

Phil

[mcaplinger]

Leaving aside the question of whether or not any fragments of MCO fell to the surface, let me rephrase my question:  Where in Mars lat/long was the closest approach? 

I don't recall seeing specific analyses of the trajectory based on final tracking data, though it certainly exists in some form. In the pre-launch mission plan, closest approach was over about 30N, 170W and the spacecraft was moving southward; the orbit was near-polar (inclination 92.93 deg) but I don't know if the closest approach coordinates varied with actual day of launch.