Mars craft's engine fires, but no signal

Posted by jburk to Mars Polar Lander at September 23, 1999 12:00 PM

NASA's next Mars orbiter fired its engine to push itself into orbit around the red planet early Thursday but engineers failed to receive a signal that all went well. The Mars Climate Orbiter engine fired as expected at 5:01 EDT, with a chorus of "Yes!" coming from the control room at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.