The Mars Surveyor
'98 program is comprised of two spacecraft
to be launched separately, the Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98
Orbiter) and the Mars Polar Lander (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander). The two missions will have many scientific objectives in that they will study the
Martian weather, climate, and water and carbon dioxide budget, in order to understand the
reservoirs, behavior, and atmospheric role of volatiles and to search for evidence of
long-term and episodic climate changes.
