[meteorite-list] NASA's Multipurpose Mars Mission Successfully Launched

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Aug 12 12:09:55 2005
Message-ID: <200508121608.j7CG8tQ05377_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

Dolores Beasley
Headquarters, Washington August 12, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-1753)

George Diller
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
(Phone: 321/867-2468)

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-6278)

RELEASE: 05-219

NASA'S MULTIPURPOSE MARS MISSION SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED

A seven-month flight to Mars began this morning for NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It will inspect the red planet
in fine detail and assist future landers.

An Atlas V launch vehicle, 19 stories tall with the two-ton
spacecraft on top, roared away from Launch Complex 41 at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:43 a.m. EDT. Its powerful
first stage consumed about 200 tons of fuel and oxygen in just
over four minutes, then dropped away to let the upper stage
finish the job of putting the spacecraft on a path toward Mars.
This was the first launch of an interplanetary mission on an
Atlas V.

"We have a healthy spacecraft on its way to Mars and a lot of
happy people who made this possible," said James Graf, project
manager for MRO at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),
Pasadena, Calif.

MRO established radio contact with controllers 61 minutes
after launch and within four minutes of separation from the
upper stage. Initial contact came through an antenna at the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Uchinoura Space Center
in southern Japan.

Health and status information about the orbiter's subsystems
were received through Uchinoura and the Goldstone, Calif.,
antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network. By 14 minutes
after separation, the craft's solar panels finished unfolding,
enabling the MRO to start recharging batteries and operate as
a fully functional spacecraft.

The orbiter carries six scientific instruments for examining
the surface, atmosphere and subsurface of Mars in
unprecedented detail from low orbit. For example, its
high-resolution camera will reveal features as small as a
dishwasher. NASA expects to get several times more data about
Mars from MRO than from all previous Martian missions
combined.

Researchers will use the instruments to learn more about the
history and distribution of Mars' water. That information
will improve understanding of planetary climate change and
will help guide the quest to answer whether Mars ever
supported life. The orbiter will also evaluate potential
landing sites for future missions. MRO will use its
high-data-rate communications system to relay information
between Mars surface missions and Earth.

Mars is 72 million miles from Earth today, but the spacecraft
will travel more than four times that distance on its
outbound-arc trajectory to intercept the red planet on
March 10, 2006. The cruise period will be busy with
checkups, calibrations and trajectory adjustments.

On arrival day, the spacecraft will fire its engines and
slow itself enough for Martian gravity to capture it into a
very elongated orbit. The spacecraft will spend half a year
gradually shrinking and shaping its orbit by "aerobraking,"
a technique using the friction of carefully calculated dips
into the upper atmosphere to slow the vehicle. The mission's
main science phase is scheduled to begin in November 2006.

The launch was originally scheduled for August 10, but was
delayed first due to a gyroscope issue on a different Atlas V,
and the next day because of a software glitch.

The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science
Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver,
prime contractor for the project, built both the spacecraft
and the launch vehicle.

NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center is
responsible for government engineering oversight of the
Atlas V, spacecraft/launch vehicle integration and launch
day countdown management.

For more information about MRO on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mro

For information about NASA and other agency programs on the
Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

-end-
Received on Fri 12 Aug 2005 12:08:55 PM PDT