Posted by Davin Flateau on 10 Mar 2006 at 5:39 pm.
Filed under General.
MRO Mission Control just erupted in applause as the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter was confirmed to be in orbit around Mars! Horray! And phew! Many spacecraft have turned from multimillion dollar missions into useless junk or crash debris at this stage, but not today. NASA’s batting average goes up a little.
Today, we have a new powerful set of eyes looking down on our intriguing neighbor.
Right now, the MRO’s orbit is highly elliptical, with its closest approach to Mars being only 180 miles, and as far as 28,000 miles. Over the next six months, it will rub against Mars’ atmosphere (a procedure called aerobraking) to change its orbit into the final designed circular polar orbit that it will need.
