The Mars Pathfinder, the first spacecraft designed to land and explore Mars in nearly 21 years, is launched from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta II rocket. It is expected to arrive on Mars on July 4, 1997.
Defense industry leaders say the Air Force needs to be able to update the software on its munitions multiple times a day, not every few months, and a new Pentagon instruction released last week could enable that.
