Mars Polar Lander Essay

Introduction This is a report on the Mars Polar Lander review board report as per this student’s estimation. The Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 Missions were launched on 3rd January 1999, using a single space vehicle, from Kennedy Space Center. After entering the Mars atmosphere, the communication ended, but did not restart after 24 minutes as scheduled. Finally after several failed attempts on re-establishing communication, on 16th December 1999, the Deputy Director of the Laboratory appointed a special review board for the failed missions [1]. The review board had 2 tasks, (a) To fine the root cause of the failure and (b) Identify actions needed for future success [1]. The probable cause was found for the Mars Polar Lander to fail, i.e., the engines shut down

It substantiates the effectiveness of the lack of consistent management and communication gap in the project could pilot to failures. And this report, and a few other sources mentioned in the references, about the Mars Polar Lander is an effective and thorough investigation over the mission details. But would like to point out that there were other sources that presented more details, such as in the testing phase of the project, of the MPL. As an original project manager of the MPL project, first and foremost would like that there be proper staffing and the proper resources available for the project successful completion. If there were a budget problem, then the project requirements have to reduce according to the resources available, else it would end up a failure too. There has to be a balance with the requirements, duration and cost. This proves the point that every project has the main points to balance, i.e., cost, schedule and technology. Without this balance, there will be issues that cannot be solved at a given point of