Did this mission actually happen?

[Dman979]

During my Engineering Design seminar today, my teacher mentioned the Kerstan Blunder.

Quote

The great Kersten Blunder. Software controlling the Vigor space probe on course for Venus, used 24.5 instead of 25.4 to convert millimeters to inches. The error meant that the probe missed venus completely and 2 billion worth of technology was lost

That's the quote directly from his slide.

My question to you is "Did this mission happen?"

I did some research online, and it didn't seem like the U.S. launched a Vigor probe, and it doesn't look like Japan or the USSR did, either.

But what did you find? Was this just a misname? Was there a mission like this, but to a different planet?

[Kryten]

Mars Climate Orbiter was famously lost because lockheed gave a command for a burn in pound-seconds instead of newton-seconds of impulse, so that'll be the grain of truth behind it; everything else is wrong.

[softweir]

22 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

My question to you is "Did this mission happen?"

According to This Thread it did not happen. (The bit a few posts down about the National Physical Laboratory is a laugh.)

However, there have been plenty of real examples of this sort of error.

[Dman979]

Just now, softweir said:

According to This Thread it did not happen. (The bit a few posts down about the National Physical Laboratory is a laugh.)

However, there have been plenty of real examples of this sort of error.

I saw that thread as I was doing my research. You're right, the NPL part is funny.

I posted here because I figured that this is a community of space geeks, and someone would know for sure.