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Planetary News: Mars (2005)

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Blasts Off in Picture-Perfect Launch

By A.J.S. Rayl
August 12, 2005

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter blasted off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida at 7:43 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and is now on its way to Mars.

The launch seemed to go like clockwork as the spacecraft rocketed away from Earth. This was the first NASA launch to use the new Atlas V rocket built by Lockheed-Martin.

Immediately following separation at 8:41 a.m. EDT, there was an expected two-minute period of silence where the spacecraft was incommunicado until a ground team from the Japanese space agency (JAXA) confirmed that it picked up the signal from a station in Tanegashima, Japan. By 8:58 am EDT, MRO's solar arrays had been deployed and were drawing power and the spacecraft was power-positive, or in other words, operating on its own power.

The MRO team is now keeping track of its charge via the Deep Space Network (DSN), with data being rerouted back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where MRO is being managed.

"What a difference a day makes," said a smiling Chuck Dovale, NASA launch manager, from the Kennedy Space Center. "It couldn't have been any smoother and in light of yesterday's count, it was certainly a welcomed event. The range and the launch vehicle and the spacecraft all cooperated during long count and we were able to launch right at the beginning of the window. It's a great start for MRO."

For the next 7 months, during the cruise and approach phases of the mission, the flight team will put the spacecraft through a series of checkout tests and science calibrations in addition to conducting several maneuvers needed to fine-tune its trajectory.

Viewed as an important step in a long-range vision for exploring the Red Planet, MRO will build on knowledge gained from the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, as well as the three orbiters currently at the Red Planet, examining the planet in unprecedented detail.

MRO is a new spacecraft design, provided by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, that is "smarter, more reliable, more agile, and more productive than any previous Mars orbiter," according to official press data. It is also the first spacecraft designed from the ground up for aerobraking, the rigorous part of Mars missions where the orbiter uses the friction of the planet's atmosphere to slow down in order to settle into its final orbit around the Red Planet.

After arriving at Mars in March 2006, MRO will spend six months in an aerobraking phase, gradually adjusting the shape of its orbit by using friction from carefully calculated dips into the top of the Martian atmosphere. This will put the spacecraft into an orbit that is less than 200 miles above the surface.

While missions like MER have shown that water once flowed across Mars' surface, scientists have yet to determine if it was around long enough to provide a habitat for life, and whether there are any significant pockets of underground water today. MRO will shed new light on these and other mysteries of Mars.

The mission's primary science phase is to begin in November 2006, and the first new data about the planet will be returned then.

MRO will use six instruments to study the surface, probe the subsurface, and profile the atmosphere to improve knowledge about what happened to the water that once existed on Mars. It will also scout for future landing sites and scan the surface for lost landers, including NASA's 1999 Mars Polar Lander, and the European Space Agency's Beagle 2 which went missing in December 2003. In addition, the mission will be conducting telecommunication relay experiments.

The spacecraft will be able to transmit about 10 times as much data per minute as any previous Mars spacecraft. This capability will serve both to relay detailed findings of the instruments on the orbiter and enable data relay from other landers on the Martian surface to Earth. NASA plans to launch the Phoenix Mars Scout in 2007 to land on the far northern Martian surface, and is also developing an advanced rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) for launch in 2009.

Following the first two-year science phase of its mission, MRO will then switch to its role as a communications relay for Phoenix and MSL. While the primary mission is slated to end in 2010, the spacecraft actually has enough fuel to last until 2015.