This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Six, five, four.

Cast your mind back to the late 1990s.

We have ignition and we have lift off of NASA's Mars climate orbiter

as we continue to explore the mysteries of the red planet.

It's the late 20th century and is the threat of Y2K

and rap metal crossover loom large in people's minds

and NASA satellite blasts off towards Mars.

That's producer Joel Werner from the Sum of All Parts podcast.

Twenty seconds after lift off, everything continues to go well.

So this satellite weighing 338 kilograms.

That's 745 pounds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get to that.

So the satellite weighing 338 kilograms

hurdles through space towards the distant planet.

It takes nearly a year to get there and when it gets close,

the satellite fires its main engine to go into orbit around Mars.

Up until that point, all data from the spacecraft appeared normal.

Everything was running smoothly.

The engine burn begins just as the spacecraft disappears behind Mars.

Mission control waits for it to reappear and they wait and wait.

And wait.

...