[meteorite-list] NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Studies Comet Flyby

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 23:24:25 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201410200624.s9K6OPNJ001976_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4344

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Studies Comet Flyby
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
October 19, 2014

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status Report

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has sent home more data about
Mars than all other missions combined, is also now providing data about
a comet that buzzed The Red Planet today (Oct. 19).

The orbiter continues operating in good health after sheltering behind
Mars during the half hour when high-velocity dust particles from comet
C/2013 A1 Siding Spring had the most chance of reaching the paths of Mars
orbiters. It maintained radio communications with Earth throughout the
comet's closest approach, at 11:27 a.m. PDT (2:27 p.m. EDT), and the peak
dust-risk period centered about 100 minutes later.

"The spacecraft performed flawlessly throughout the comet flyby," said
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Dan Johnston of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "It maneuvered for the planned
observations of the comet and emerged unscathed."

Following the critical period of dust flux, the orbiter is communicating
at 1.5 megabits per second with NASA's Deep Space Network. It remained
on Side A of its two redundant computers, and all subsystems are working
as expected.

Downlink of data has begun from today's comet observations by three instruments
on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The full downlink may take days. These
instruments -- the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE),
the Compact Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), and the Context Camera
(CTX) -- also observed the comet for days before the flyby and will continue
to make observations of it in the next few days. The orbiter's other three
instruments are being used to study possible effects of gas and dust in
the comet's tail interacting with the atmosphere of Mars. These are the
Mars Climate Sounder (MCS), the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) and the Mars
Shallow Radar (SHARAD).

Three NASA Mars orbiters, two Mars rovers and other assets on Earth and
in space are studying comet Siding Spring. This comet is making its first
visit this close to the sun from the outer solar system's Oort Cloud,
so the concerted campaign of observations may yield fresh clues to our
solar system's earliest days more than 4 billion years ago.

Following the comet flyby, operators of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile
EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter are assessing the status of that orbiter and
operators for NASA's Mars Odyssey are anticipating resumption of communications.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission met all its science goals for
the two-year primary science phase ending in 2008. The spacecraft's overtime
work since then has added to the science returns. The mission has provided
more than 240 trillion bits of data about Mars, a volume equivalent to
three-and-a-half months of nonstop, high-definition video. The data it
acquired during the comet's closest approach to Mars are now being transmitted
to Earth, but it will take many hours before downlink is complete and
processing can start.

Objectives of the observing program are to attempt to image the comet
nucleus, to study its surrounding coma of dust and gas, and to search
for signatures of that material interacting with the Mars atmosphere.
Observations of the comet will continue for another day or so, as the
comet and Mars separate, with the comet reaching its closest approach
to the sun in about a week, on Oct. 25.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft
and supports its operations. Lead organizations for the orbiters' six
science instruments are University of Arizona, Tucson, for HiRISE; Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, for CRISM;
Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, for CTX and MARCI; Sapienza University
of Rome, Italy, for SHARAD; and JPL for MCS.

For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, visit:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/

For more about comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring, visit:

http://mars.nasa.gov/comets/sidingspring

Media Contact
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov
Received on Mon 20 Oct 2014 02:24:25 AM PDT