Mars Climate Orbiter successfully blasted off a Kennedy Space Center launch pad for a 9-month journey to the Red Planet on Friday, December 11, 1998. The spacecraft will arrive in martian orbit in September 1999, where it will serve as a weather satellite for a full martian year (two full Earth years). The next Mars lander is scheduled for January 3, 1999 liftoff. Mars Polar will touch down on Mars in December 1999, carrying two softball-size penetrators, the Deep Space 2 mission, that will crash land on Mars some 60 miles north of the landing site. All is going well with NASA’s Saturn-bound Cassini mission an