[meteorite-list] Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Completes 40, 000 Mars Orbits

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 22:06:17 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201502110606.t1B66HE4002766_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4478

NASA Spacecraft Completes 40,000 Mars Orbits
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 9, 2015

-- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, has now orbited
the Red Planet more than 40,000 times

-- The continuing mission studies the whole planet and has shown that
Mars is diverse and dynamic

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed a mission milestone of 40,000
orbits on Feb. 7, 2015, in its ninth year of returning information about
the atmosphere, surface and subsurface of Mars, from equatorial to polar
latitudes.

The mission's potent science instruments and extended lifespan have revealed
that Mars is a world more dynamic and diverse than was previously realized.
Now in its fourth mission extension after a two-year prime mission, the
orbiter is investigating seasonal and longer-term changes, including some
warm-season flows that are the strongest evidence so far for liquid water
on Mars today.

The orbiter has returned 247 terabits of data, which is more than the
combined total from every other mission that has ever departed Earth to
visit another planet.

It circles Mars at an altitude of about 186 miles (300 kilometers), on
a near-polar pattern, about 12 times a day. In its 40,000 orbits, the
spacecraft has flown nearly twice as far as the 310 million miles (500
million kilometers) it flew during its 2006 journey from Earth to Mars.

The mission has illuminated three very different periods of Mars history.
Its observations of the heavily cratered terrains of Mars, the oldest
on the planet, show that different types of ancient watery environments
formed water-related minerals. Some of these environments would have been
more favorable for life than others.

In more recent times, water appears to have cycled as a gas between polar
ice deposits and lower-latitude deposits of ice and snow. Extensive layering
in ice or rock probably took at least hundreds of thousands, and possibly
millions of years to form. Like ice ages on Earth, the layering is linked
to cyclic changes in the tilt of the planet's rotation axis and the changing
intensity of sunlight near the poles.

Mars' present climate is also dynamic, with volatile carbon dioxide and,
just possibly, summertime liquid water modifying gullies and forming new
streaks. With observations of new craters, avalanches and dust storms,
the orbiter has shown a partially frozen world, but not frozen in time,
as change continues today.

In addition to accomplishing its own science achievements, the Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter mission provides communication relay for missions on the surface
of Mars and evaluates potential landing site candidates for surface missions.

Two other active NASA spacecraft are currently orbiting Mars -- Mars Odyssey
since 2001, and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) since last
year. Two NASA rovers -- Opportunity and Curiosity -- are active on the
surface. These robotic missions and others in development are paving the
way for human-crew Mars missions in the 2030s and beyond as part of NASA's
Journey to Mars strategy.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 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 orbiter and collaborates with JPL to operate it. For
more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mro

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

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

2015-054
Received on Wed 11 Feb 2015 01:06:17 AM PST