Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

ToSeek · #1 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 02:03 AM

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status

With one very busy year remaining before launch, the team preparing NASA's next mission to Mars has begun integrating and testing the spacecraft's versatile payload.

Possible launch dates from Cape Canaveral, Fla., for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter begin Aug. 10, 2005. The spacecraft will reach Mars seven months later to study the surface, subsurface and atmosphere with the most powerful instrument suite ever flown to the red planet.

"Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a quantum leap in our spacecraft and instrument capabilities at Mars," said James Graf, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Weighing 2,180 kilograms [4,806 pounds] at launch, the spacecraft will be the largest ever to orbit Mars. The data rate from the orbiter at Mars back to Earth will be three times faster than a high-speed residential telephone line. This rate will enable us to return a tremendous amount of data and dramatically increase our understanding of this mysterious planet."

JPL's Dr. Richard Zurek, project scientist for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, said, "This capability is needed to achieve the higher-resolution imaging, spectral mapping, atmospheric profiling and subsurface probing that will allow us to follow up on the exciting discoveries of the current Mars missions."

Workers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, have been building the orbiter for more than a year and have reached the final assembly stage. Flight software is 96 percent complete. Assembly of the launch vehicle, an Atlas V, has begun at the same facility where the orbiter is being completed and tested. This will be the first interplanetary mission hitched to an Atlas since 1973. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter team now numbers about 175 people at Lockheed Martin and 110 at JPL.

Kevin McNeill, Lockheed Martin's program manager for the orbiter, said, "Our team has completed integration and testing of a majority of the spacecraft's subsystems. In the next few months, we'll integrate and test the science instruments on the orbiter, followed by environmental testing through early next year. We look forward to getting to the Cape next spring and integrating with the Atlas V launch vehicle. We're all very excited about getting to Mars and returning data for the science teams to evaluate."

The spacecraft's six science instruments are in the final stages of assembly, testing and calibration at several locations for delivery in coming weeks. The payload also includes a relay telecommunications package called Electra and two technology demonstrations to support planning of future Mars missions. "Electra was integrated with the spacecraft and tested in July," Graf said. "The next payload elements to be integrated will be the Mars climate sounder and the compact reconnaissance imaging spectrometer for Mars." The climate sounder, from JPL, will quantify the martian atmosphere's vertical variations in water vapor, dust and temperature; the imaging spectrometer, from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory of Laurel, Md., will scan the surface to look for water-related minerals at unprecedented scales, extending discoveries made by NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers.

The largest telescopic camera ever sent into orbit around another planet, called the high resolution imaging science experiment, will reveal Mars surface features as small as a kitchen table. Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colo., is building it for the University of Arizona, Tucson. The orbiter will also carry three other cameras. Two come from Malin Space Sciences, San Diego: the context camera for wide-swath, high-resolution pictures, and the Mars multi-color imager with its fish-eye lens for tracking changes in weather and variations in atmospheric ozone. An optical navigation camera from JPL will use positions of Mars' two moons to demonstrate precision navigation for future missions.

The Italian Space Agency is providing the orbiter's shallow radar sounding instrument, designed to probe below the surface to discover evidence of underground layers of ice, rock and, perhaps, melted water.

Another technology demonstration from JPL will allow comparison of a higher-frequency, more-efficient radio band with the band commonly used for interplanetary communications. This may allow future missions to return more data with the same expended power.

NASA's chief scientist for Mars, Dr. Jim Garvin, added, "We build our science strategy for Mars around the next-generation reconnaissance this spacecraft is to provide, with its revolutionary remote sensing payload, and we are proud of the impressive progress to date by our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter team. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will tell us where we must send our next wave of robotic explorers, including the Mars Science Laboratory, as well as paving the way for human exploration."*

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project.

R.A.F. · #2 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 02:38 AM

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The largest telescopic camera ever sent into orbit around another planet, called the high resolution imaging science experiment, will reveal Mars surface features as small as a kitchen table.

Holy COW!!

WHarris · #3 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 12:42 PM

Just imagine what kinds of things Hoagland will find in those photos... 8)

kucharek · #4 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 01:05 PM

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Originally Posted by WHarris

Just imagine what kinds of things Hoagland will find in those photos... 8)

And never he wonders why NASA sends more and more powerful cameras there when they have so much to hide...

banquo's_bumble_puppy · #5 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 01:15 PM

so at that resolution they should be able to find Beagle

ToSeek · #6 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 01:29 PM

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Originally Posted by WHarris

Just imagine what kinds of things Hoagland will find in those photos... 8)

We will learn that the Face on Mars has acne.

harlequin · #7 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 11:04 PM

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Originally Posted by banquo's_bumble_puppy

so at that resolution they should be able to find Beagle

If they know where to look. Remember the smaller the object you can see means the smaller the area you can look. And even at that resolution, it might still be difficult to say that x spot really is the lander.

One reason why scientists can point to Viking, Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity on orbiter photos is that the landers imaged their surroundings. Then they try to recognize mountains and other
features the landers on orbital images and then calculate where the lander must actually be.

aurora · #8 (**permalink**) 10-August-2004, 11:08 PM

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Originally Posted by harlequin

If they know where to look. Remember the smaller the object you can see means the smaller the area you can look. And even at that resolution, it might still be difficult to say that x spot really is the lander.

Just get a room full of grad students and have them start going through the images one at a time... :P

badprof · #9 (**permalink**) 11-August-2004, 04:38 PM

Let me guess....... You have done graduate work at some time right!!???

Maurice

lyford · #10 (**permalink**) 11-August-2004, 06:22 PM

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The largest telescopic camera ever sent into orbit around another planet, called the high resolution imaging science experiment, will reveal Mars surface features as small as a kitchen table.

Hoaxland will now use this a proof that NASA admits to evidence of an intelligent civilization.

Well, civilized enough to have kitchens at least. From that we can infer wine cellars, and from that wine, and from that fermentation, and from that bacteria which should produce organics like methane, which ESA just found from orbit.

There you have it : international space community confirmation of Hoagland's theories.

Quod erat demonstrandum, ipso facto, a posteriori, ad infinitum, non compos mentis, et cetera!

Thank you, and goodnight!

Christopher Ferro · #11 (**permalink**) 11-August-2004, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aurora

Quote:

Originally Posted by harlequin

If they know where to look. Remember the smaller the object you can see means the smaller the area you can look. And even at that resolution, it might still be difficult to say that x spot really is the lander.

Just get a room full of grad students and have them start going through the images one at a time... :P

What that means is the field of view of the camera/sensor is very small, so it will be easier to "miss" objects because you can only image a small area at a time. Without knowing exactly where Beagle 2 is, it's more likely it will be missed. Even if they did know, the pointing accuracy and precision of the sensor would also need to be fine enough to ensure the object in question is captured. MGS sometimes missed its targeted observations (like the "Face" mesa), and they were many meters across.

CJSF

Daffy · #12 (**permalink**) 11-August-2004, 06:42 PM

Personally, I would love a closer look at those "trees!" Whatever they are, they look really, really interesting.

um3k · #13 (**permalink**) 11-August-2004, 08:16 PM

Actually, I think the field of view is pretty darn wide. This thing uses an array of a rediculous number of CCDs.

ToSeek · #14 (**permalink**) 11-August-2004, 08:48 PM

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Originally Posted by um3k

Actually, I think the field of view is pretty darn wide. This thing uses an array of a rediculous number of CCDs.

Specs. Looks as if the swath width is 1.2 km for blue-green (compared with 2.9 km for Mars Global Surveyor) and 6 km for red, but with the same resolution - close to five times better than MGS - in either case. That's pretty impressive!

lyford · #15 (**permalink**) 11-August-2004, 10:00 PM

This page shows you the difference visually.

Also has a good little java applet to play with if your browser can handle it...

ToSeek · #16 (**permalink**) 13-October-2004, 06:12 PM

Red Planet Bound: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

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On orbit at Mars, MRO’s data rate link to Earth is astounding: Three times faster than a high-speed residential telephone line. Ten to twenty times more data will be relayed from MRO than previous Mars missions - more data than all prior planetary missions combined.

Electric Ashalar · #17 (**permalink**) 26-October-2004, 06:26 PM

The MRO will help resolve where to land the Mars Science Laboratory.
It's Quite apparent Cydonia is Prime.
There is water there...
Among other "stuff".

R.A.F. · #18 (**permalink**) 26-October-2004, 07:07 PM

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Originally Posted by Electric Ashalar

There is water there...

That's the first time I've heard that one...care to cite your sources??

...Oh, and I hate to break this to you, EA, but NASA has wasted enough effort on Cydonia. I seriously doubt that they would "waste" a surface laboratory there.

Electric Ashalar · #19 (**permalink**) 27-October-2004, 02:15 AM

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/apr03.html

download here:
http://realserver1.jpl.nasa.gov:8080...m?mode=compact

(Images courtesy Holger Isenberg) http://mars-news.de/

------------------------------------------ JPL--------
NEWS RELEASE: 2003-050

Mars Mysteries Revealed in Two Public Lectures

Two free public programs in Pasadena next week offer an overview of
the historic Mars Global Surveyor mission.

Dr. Terry Martin, planetary scientist and member of the Mars Global
Surveyor science team, will discuss and display imagery, charts and
scientific findings as he chronicles the adventures of the one
spacecraft that has returned more data about Mars than all other
missions combined. The first lecture will be held on Thursday evening,
April 17, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the second on
Friday evening, April 18, at Pasadena City College.

==================================================
Transcript.
19:47:52

==================================================
"...And then there's,uh,"Strangeness"
and uh,
I bring up this uh, so called "Face on mars".
not to talk about it as a "Face"
but to talk about it is a Geologically Interesting Place.
because -"What is this edge that we see?"
What is this...this "funny business" here,and also, here.

It turns out that the Sun is shining from the left and the, uh,
the feature is pretty much where you don't have Sun.
It's on the uh,,the North facing side of this,uh," Hill."

And people have talked about this possibly being a,an old snow deposit.
that snow has been covered over by dust,
so it looks the same brightness as everything else.
but it's receded from the top by the action of the Sun.
and so it is ,uh,hiding from the Sun basically but,
surviving,uh, under this dust layer.
Sort of an insulating layer, and we see a lot of this "Stuff"
uh, in moderate latitudes,it's not at the polar caps,
this is down at,uh, 40 degrees,or so, latitude.

So again...
Water in places that are interesting,
and, if you were a Creature,
perhaps,uh, you know,
this Latitude would be more comfortable.
and yet there's this Water handy for you,uh, to make a Living.
================================transcript:EA===== ===

==================================================
The following is an exchange from Holgers Thread/////
http://www.anomalies.net/cgi-bin/bbs...=005486&p=

Holger Isenberg

quote:
Originally posted by ELECTRIC____ASHALAR:
= 19:47:52

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Haha! Thanks EA!
I was myself searching for 19.47 or 39 or 41/9 correlation in the video timeline, but forgot the most obvious, the local time ;-) "

Holger.
The Lecture on April 17th has MORE to say...
You want a 41/9 connection???

HOWS THIS!9/41/0015
http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/CMEX/da...ndar/main.html

Face Segment = 19:47:52
Earth date = 4/17/2003
Mars date = 9/41/0015

This Tool will come in handy.

R.A.F. · #20 (**permalink**) 27-October-2004, 03:22 PM

From the lecture that EA linked to...

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Originally Posted by Dr. Te