Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter - Page 7

ToSeek · #**181** (**permalink**) 30-August-2006, 06:46 PM

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Ground controllers are ready to perform a major maneuver today of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)—an “end game” tactic that puts the orbiting probe a step closer to scientific sensor sweeping of the red planet.

For months, the MRO has been aerobraking—using the friction of the planet’s thin atmosphere to slow the craft. That technique saves on onboard propellant.

Spacecraft engineers and navigation experts are planning a burn today of MRO’s Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM) thrusters, said Wayne Sidney, MRO Flight Engineering Team Lead for Lockheed Martin Space Systems, the firm that designed and built the spacecraft in neighboring Denver, Colorado.

“For regular burns up to this point…over the last six months…they last on the order of seconds. This one is going to last six minutes. It’s a hefty burn,” Sidney told SPACE.com. “It’s the biggest burn just with these TCM thrusters.”

ToSeek · #**182** (**permalink**) 31-August-2006, 03:21 PM

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Successfully Concludes Aerobraking

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Nearly six months after it entered orbit, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has concluded its aerobraking phase. The spacecraft had been dipping in and out of the red planet's atmosphere to adjust its orbit. On August 30, 2006, during its 445th orbit, the spacecraft fired its intermediate thrusters to raise the low point of its orbit and stop dipping into the atmosphere. The six-minute engine burn began at 10:36 a.m. (PST), altering the spacecraft's course so that its periapsis (the closest it comes to the planet) is about 210 kilometers (130 miles) above the planet, well above the atmosphere.

antoniseb · #**183** (**permalink**) 31-August-2006, 03:28 PM

Now, only two more months before the serious imaging part of the mission is to begin. I'm curious to see its images of the MER sites and compare them to the MGS images. That will give me a real perspective as to how much better the new camera really is.

Manchurian Taikonaut · #**184** (**permalink**) 04-September-2006, 09:00 PM

Great to see so many missions on Mars we've got, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Global Surveyor, this mission will find out amazing stuff on Mars and it will be good to see the results of its infrared spectrograph
I think it will also find the previously lost Mars Polar Lander

Blob · #**185** (**permalink**) 06-September-2006, 09:20 PM

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its six intermediate-size thrusters for 210 seconds Tuesday in a manoeuvre to make the shape of its orbit closer to the planned geometry for the mission's main science phase, beginning in November.

The manoeuvre raised the portion of the elliptical orbit at which the spacecraft comes nearest to Mars -- the periapsis -- from 216 kilometres above the surface to 320 kilometres. A thruster firing on Aug. 30 had lifted the periapsis high enough to end a five-month process of dipping into the atmosphere every orbit to gradually shrink the orbit. The spacecraft now completes each loop around Mars in just under two hours.

The Sept. 5 manoeuvre also fine-tuned the orbit's angle relative to Mars' equator, tweaking it less than one degree to 92.5 degrees.

Read more

ToSeek · #**186** (**permalink**) 13-September-2006, 08:10 PM

NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Reaches Planned Flight Path

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NASA's newest spacecraft at Mars has completed the challenging half-year task of shaping its orbit to the nearly circular, low-altitude pattern from which it will scrutinize the planet.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its six intermediate-size thrusters for 12.5 minutes Monday afternoon, Sept. 11, shifting the low point of its orbit to stay near the Martian south pole and the high point to stay near the north pole. The altitude of the orbit ranges from 250 kilometers (155 miles) to 316 kilometers (196 miles) above the surface.

"This maneuver puts us into our science orbit," said Dan Johnston, deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Getting to this point is a great achievement." Challenging activities remain ahead this month, such as deploying an antenna 10 meters (33 feet) long and removing a lens cap from a crucial instrument. The main science investigations will begin in November.

Karl · #**187** (**permalink**) 19-September-2006, 06:56 PM

MRO SHARAD deployment should have happened already, anxiously awaiting results. . .

Blob · #**188** (**permalink**) 19-September-2006, 07:45 PM

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) radar instrument, the Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARAD), was deployed at 16:00 GMT on Saturday. The instrument will search through layers of subsurface rock to find water.
The MRO team hopes to make observations with the spacecraft's instrument for about a week starting on 29 September.

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Italian and US space centres on Tuesday picked up the first signals from an Italian radar orbiting Mars to detect water or ice on the Red Planet .
The radar, SHARAD, showed it was working perfectly, Italian officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena said .
The head of the Italian Space Agency, Sergio Vetrella, hailed the strong signal from SHARAD, saying it confirmed "Italy's leadership in the sector".
SHARAD is mounted on the second probe to visit Mars in two years, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Observer .

ToSeek · #**192** (**permalink**) 26-September-2006, 05:28 PM

HiRISE Camera Will Take First Close Up Pictures of Mars on 29 September

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The most powerful camera ever to orbit Mars will get its first close look at the Red Planet on Friday.

The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera flying aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will relay its first low-altitude images to scientists at The University of Arizona beginning Friday afternoon, Sept. 29.

"It's exciting because it's the first time we'll see Mars while the spacecraft is orbiting at about 300 kilometers (roughly 190 miles) above the planet's surface," HiRISE principal investigator and UA Professor Alfred S. McEwen said.

ToSeek · #**193** (**permalink**) 28-September-2006, 11:35 PM

Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer Begins Mission at Mars

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The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., is one of six science instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. CRISM’s spring-loaded cover had been closed since the orbiter’s launch in August 2005, protecting the imager’s sensitive telescope optics from fuel residue and heat as the spacecraft eased into orbit around Mars. Today, a day after turning on CRISM’s power and putting the device through a series of performance tests, operators opened the cover and verified that it had deployed properly.

“Everything went smoothly and our team is looking forward to our first images later this week,” says Dr. Scott Murchie, CRISM principal investigator from the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

CRISM will look for areas that were wet long enough to leave a mineral signature on the surface, searching for the spectral traces of aqueous and hydrothermal deposits, and mapping the geology, composition, and stratigraphy of surface features. The imager will map areas on the martian surface as small as 60 feet (about 18 meters) across, with the orbiter at its average altitude of about 190 miles (300 kilometers).

ciderman · #**194** (**permalink**) 29-September-2006, 02:19 AM

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Originally Posted by antoniseb

I was a little disappointed in the lack of similar images from the ESA probe. Hopefully NASA will be a little more forthcoming with theirs.

I totally agree, I am extreamly disappointed with the dearth of MARSIS data in the public domain

.

01101001 · #**195** (**permalink**) 29-September-2006, 06:53 PM

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Originally Posted by ToSeek

Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer Begins Mission at Mars

New Spectrometer Begins Its Global Map of Mars

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This image shows one of the first regions of Mars measured after CRISM's cover was opened.

CRISM takes images in two basic formats. The first format is a "targeted image" about 10 kilometers by 10 kilometers (about 6 miles by 6 miles), at about 18 meters (60 feet) per pixel, in 544 colors covering wavelengths of 0.36 to 3.92 micrometers. The second format is a lower-resolution strip 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide and thousands of kilometers long, at 200 meters (660 feet) per pixel, in 72 colors. Many thousands of these "multispectral survey" strips are used to build a global map.

01101001 · #**196** (**permalink**) 29-September-2006, 07:00 PM

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Originally Posted by ToSeek

HiRISE Camera Will Take First Close Up Pictures of Mars on 29 September

HiBlog: HiRISE Team Blog:
Waiting to receive the first image…. Friday, 2006 September 29 at 10:25 am MST

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I certainly breathed a sigh of relief when we got confirmation from the telemetry that our first image was successfully acquired. Now we’re waiting in suspense to actually receive the image here at HiROC (HiRISE Operations Center).

Edit: update

Friday, 2006 September 29 at 11:23 am MST

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Several pictures at HiROC of people waiting for the first science orbit image to come back for HiRISE.

Oh, good. Pictures of people waiting for pictures of Mars.

Edit: update

Second image being taken Friday, 2006 September 29 at 12:56 pm MST

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Everything from the spacecraft says that the second image was taken successfully. We are still awaiting the first image to come through, the quick look timer expires soon, meaning that we will be able to have our first look at the image sometime in the next few hours.

Edit: update

First pictures are in! Friday, 2006 September 29 at 1:13 pm MST

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The first picture is already coming in! They look amazing! Stay tuned for details!

antoniseb · #**197** (**permalink**) 29-September-2006, 07:01 PM

544 Colors! How is this camera constructed? It has 544 different filters for every pixel. This could tell us a lot of information, but we'll need to use an identical camera to take pictures of local minerals to rally know what we're looking at.

01101001 · #**198** (**permalink**) 29-September-2006, 07:13 PM

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Originally Posted by antoniseb

544 Colors! How is this camera constructed? It has 544 different filters for every pixel. This could tell us a lot of information, but we'll need to use an identical camera to take pictures of local minerals to rally know what we're looking at.

Wikipedia: CRISM

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CRISM measures visible and infrared electromagnetic radiation from 370 to 3920 nanometers in 6.55 nanometer increments.

Wow. More than Crayola.

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Colors Available 1998

Number of Colors: 120

24 new colors added:
Almond, Canary, Fern, Pink Flamingo, Antique Brass, Caribbean Green, Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown, Purple Heart, Banana Mania, Cotton Candy, Manatee, Shadow, Beaver, Blush, Mountain Meadow, Sunset Orange, Blue Bell, Desert Sand, Outer Space, Torch Red, Pink Sherbet, Eggplant, Piggy Pink, Vivid Violet

I wonder what color "Outer Space" is. Oh, here it is. Sorta black.