Lockheed Martin

Builder of the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft and supplier of its ground software.

PIA Investigations Covering This Organisation

Lockheed Martin appears in 1 Project Insider Asia investigation, covering Governance.

The Evidence Record

What the investigations document about Lockheed Martin's involvement, drawn from the published investigation records.

Governance Lessons

Lessons from the investigations covering Lockheed Martin, each attributed to its source investigation.

1. Verify the Interface, Not Just the Specification

   The Software Interface Specification correctly demanded newton-seconds; the delivered file used pound-force seconds, and no process checked compliance. A specification without verification is decoration.

   From Mars Climate Orbiter

2. Anomalies Are Data — Staff Someone to Chase Them

   Trajectory discrepancies and unexpectedly frequent thruster firings were observed for months. With effectively one navigator across three missions, nobody had the capacity to reconcile them. Anomalies that go uninvestigated become root causes.

   From Mars Climate Orbiter

3. A Contingency You Never Rehearse Is a Fiction

   TCM-5 could have raised the spacecraft to a survivable altitude, but it was never analysed, tested or given commit criteria — so it could not be used. Backup plans require preparation and pre-agreed triggers, or they do not exist.

   From Mars Climate Orbiter

4. Handovers Are Where Systems Die

   MCO was the first JPL mission handed from its development team to a multi-mission operations team, and almost nobody moved with it. Knowledge of the spacecraft's quirks stayed behind. Staff handovers with people, not documents alone.

   From Mars Climate Orbiter

5. Never Cut Assurance to Fund Ambition

   'Faster, better, cheaper' traded verification depth for mission frequency. Cost pressure is legitimate — but savings must come from scope, not from the processes whose entire job is catching human error.

   From Mars Climate Orbiter

6. Errors Are Normal; Catching Them Is the System

   The Board's philosophy: people make errors, so projects need layered processes to catch them. Blaming the units mistake misses the point — eight contributing causes, all organisational, let one error reach Mars.

   From Mars Climate Orbiter

7. Put the Right People in the Review Room

   Operations navigation staff attended neither the preliminary nor critical design reviews. Reviews conducted without the people who will operate the system cannot surface operational risk.

   From Mars Climate Orbiter