[meteorite-list] MRO's HiRISE Camera Turned On

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Sep 7 12:18:56 2005
Message-ID: <200509071617.j87GHoh24775_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

CAMERA'S TRIP TO MARS IS NO LEISURE CRUISE FOR HiRISE TEAM
>From Lori Stiles, University Communications, UA, 520-621-1877
September 07, 2005

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Contact information listed below
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The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is rocketing
toward Mars, and it's no leisure cruise for the camera operations team at
The University of Arizona campus in Tucson either. The team turned the
HiRISE camera on Friday (Sept. 2).

NASA launched the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and its science
payload, which includes the HiRISE camera, on Aug. 12. HiRISE -- the largest
telescopic camera sent beyond Earth's orbit -- and five other MRO
instruments will inspect the red planet in unprecedented detail and assist
future landers. The spacecraft will travel more than four times the distance
to Mars before entering Mars' orbit on March 10, 2006.

For the next year, the HiRISE team in Tucson will train new members joining
the project, write volumes of new software, image celestial objects to check
how their camera operates post-launch, and practice as if their camera
already were in orbit. UA Professor Alfred S. McEwen leads HiRISE.

"We're very excited, and we're working very hard," said Eric Eliason, who
manages the HiRISE Operations Center (HiROC) at the UA's Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory.

Eliason and the rest of the HiROC team is responsible for most of the
ground data system work for the HiRISE camera. Observation planning, uplink,
downlink, instrument monitoring, and data processing and analysis will all
be done at HiROC, which is located in the UA's C.P. Sonett Space Sciences
Building.

"We'll get our first images tomorrow (Sept. 8) as the spacecraft slews our
camera over the moon and then over Omega Centauri," Eliason said. "The
spacecraft is flying so fast that the moon will already look very small -
fewer than 200 pixels across. But we think we're going to get some really
pretty pictures of Omega Centauri. And we'll know very quickly how well our
instrument is working."

Plans are for HiRISE to make other sets of star observations on Oct. 4 - 5,
Nov. 5 and Dec. 13 - 14. The October images will show very precisely how MRO
navigation cameras are aligned with HiRISE. The November images will help
the HiRISE team fine-tune their camera's focus to get the sharpest images
possible. The December images will show how vibrations from different
spacecraft instruments may affect HiRISE images.

"These observations will also help us to characterize the optical
distortion of our lens, and what processing methods we'll need to correct
for whatever distortion we see," Eliason said.

The 145-pound (65 kg) HiRISE camera features a 20-inch (half-meter) primary
mirror. Developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Co., the
$40 million HiRISE camera will take ultra-sharp photographs over 3.5-mile (6
kilometer) swaths of the martian landscape, resolving rocks and other
geologic features as small as 40 inches (one meter) across. It will take
pictures in stereo and color while it flies at more than 7,800 mph (3 and
1/2 km per second) about 190 miles (300 km) above Mars' surface.

After entering Mars's orbit in March 2006, the MRO will gradually adjust
its elliptical orbit to a circular orbit by aerobraking, a technique that
creates drag using the friction of careful dips into the planet's upper
atmosphere. The spacecraft's 25-month primary science phase begins in
November 2006.

The HiROC team expects to process 1,000 gigantic high-resolution images and
9,000 smaller high-resolution images during the science phase of the MRO
mission.

The MRO 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 the
spacecraft.

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Contact Information
Eric Eliason 520-626-0764 eeliason_at_lpl.arizona.edu
Alfred S. McEwen 520-621-4573 mcewen_at_lpl.arizona.edu

Related Web sites
 http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/
 http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/
Received on Wed 07 Sep 2005 12:17:50 PM PDT