Mission Failure
The rocket lifted off on November 16, 1996 at 20:48:53 UTC. The rocket performed properly up to parking orbit. The planned second burn of the Block D-2 fourth stage failed to take place. The spacecraft separated and then performed its engine burn automatically. Unfortunately, without the fourth stage burn, the spacecraft accelerated itself back into the Earth's atmosphere. The fourth stage re-entered on a later orbit. There is disagreement between American and Russian sources on the timeline.
Read more about this topic: Mars 96
Famous quotes containing the words mission and/or failure:
“I am succeeding quite well in my work and the future looks well. What special mission is God preparing me for? Cutting off all earthly ties and isolating me as it were.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“Any effort in philosophy to make the obscure obvious is likely to be unappealing, for the penalty of failure is confusion while the reward of success is banality. An answer, once found, is dull; and the only remaining interest lies in a further effort to render equally dull what is still obscure enough to be intriguing.”
—Nelson Goodman (b. 1906)