Aerobraking in the context of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

👉 Aerobraking in the context of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to search for the existence of water on Mars and provide support for missions to Mars, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 12, 2005, at 11:43 UTC and reached Mars on March 10, 2006, at 21:24 UTC. In November 2006, after six months of aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase.

Mission objectives include observing the climate of Mars, investigating geologic forces, providing reconnaissance of future landing sites, and relaying data from surface missions back to Earth. To support these objectives, the MRO carries different scientific instruments, including three cameras, two spectrometers and a subsurface radar. As of July 29, 2023, the MRO has returned over 450 terabits of data, helped choose safe landing sites for NASA's Mars landers, discovered pure water ice in new craters and further evidence that water once flowed on the surface on Mars.

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Aerobraking in the context of Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was launched on November 7, 1996, and collected data in orbit around Mars from 1997 to 2006. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed atmospheric monitoring for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.

The spacecraft completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, it failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007. An investigation attributed the loss of the spacecraft to a flaw in an update to its system software. MGS remains in a stable near-polar circular orbit at about 450 km altitude and as of 1996, was expected to crash onto the surface of the planet in 2050.

View the full Wikipedia page for Mars Global Surveyor

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Aerobraking in the context of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

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👉 Aerobraking in the context of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Aerobraking in the context of Mars Global Surveyor