Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: Mapping Mars in High Definition

[Judi Lynn]

By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | July 20, 2018 08:28pm ET

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft that beams back high-resolution imagery of the Red Planet's surface. Some of its notable investigations include searching for ice and water, finding a landing spot for the Mars Curiosity rover, and imaging a close-flying comet called Comet Siding Spring in 2014.

It has also provided high-resolution imagery of recurring slope lineae, crater streaks that may be due to dust features or briny surface water. The spacecraft also serves as a communication relay for the Opportunity rover and the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.

MRO completed 50,000 laps around Mars in March 2017. In February 2018, NASA said it plans to operate the spacecraft beyond the mid-2020s, an extraordinary feat given that the mission was initially designed for two years at Mars. That decision is due in large part to focus limited Mars mission dollars on sample return, and to push a planned replacement orbiter until the late 2020s, according to Spaceflight Now. With MRO extending its mission, it will support the future Mars 2020 NASA rover as well as a possible sample-return mission to Mars.

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: Mapping Mars in High Definition
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passes over the planet's south polar region in this artist's concept illustration. The orbiter's shallow radar experiment, one of six science instruments on board, is designed to probe the internal structure of Mars' polar ice caps, as well as to gather information planet-wide about underground layers of ice, rock and, perhaps, liquid water that might be accessible from the surface. Phobos, one of Mars' two moons, appears in the upper left corner of the illustration. Image
Credit: NASA/JPL/Corby Waste
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft that beams back high-resolution imagery of the Red Planet's surface. Some of its notable investigations include searching for ice and water, finding a landing spot for the Mars Curiosity rover, and imaging a close-flying comet called Comet Siding Spring in 2014.

It has also provided high-resolution imagery of recurring slope lineae, crater streaks that may be due to dust features or briny surface water. The spacecraft also serves as a communication relay for the Opportunity rover and the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.

MRO completed 50,000 laps around Mars in March 2017. In February 2018, NASA said it plans to operate the spacecraft beyond the mid-2020s, an extraordinary feat given that the mission was initially designed for two years at Mars. That decision is due in large part to focus limited Mars mission dollars on sample return, and to push a planned replacement orbiter until the late 2020s, according to Spaceflight Now. With MRO extending its mission, it will support the future Mars 2020 NASA rover as well as a possible sample-return mission to Mars.

While some of MRO's instruments and engineering components show signs of aging, NASA is implementing workarounds. For example, it is using a star tracker to help maintain MRO's attitude, lessening the reliance on old gyroscopes. Some images from its high-resolution camera, HiRISE, have a little bit of blurring and the cause is still under investigation. A spectrometer instrument called CRISM has lost most of the cryocoolers it brought to Mars, but it can still do observations in some wavelengths.

More:
https://www.space.com/18320-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter.html

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