NASA Starts 2nd Phase Of Mars Mission

An American reconnaissance craft is starting a second stage of science operations in Martian orbit this week after wrapping up a prime two-year mission that shed new light on the probability that the planet once was awash in water.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in August 2005, setting sail on a 310-million-mile journey through the inner solar system. The $450 million spacecraft arrived at Mars in March 2006 and then spent the next eight months easing its way into a near-polar orbit 186 miles above the surface of the planet.

Equipped with a very high resolution camera, a hyper-spectral imaging spectrometer, a climate sounder and a shallow subsurface radar, the NASA orbiter has beamed back 73 terrabits of science data -- or more data that all previous Mars missions combined.

The data suggests that water once flowed on and near the surface of parts of the planet for hundreds of millions of years, raising the real possibility that conditions might have been conducive to harboring primitive life.

"These observations are now at the level of detail necessary to test hypotheses about when and where water has changed Mars and where future missions will be most productive as they search for habitable regions on Mars," NASA project scientist Richard Zurek said in a NASA news release.

During an initial 25-month mission, the orbiter has carried out 10,000 targeted observations and has imaged 40 percent of the planet with the same type of resolution that enables Google Earth to spotlight individual houses around the world.

The orbiter has mapped mineral bands around the planet, and NASA officials note that data from the spacecraft have enabled scientists to create almost 700 daily Martian weather maps, dozens of atmospheric temperature profiles and hundreds of radar profiles of the subsurface and the interior of the polar caps.

The orbiter also imaged NASA's Opportunity rover on the rim of Victoria Crater, and it captured images of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander during its descent to a northern arctic plain.

Data from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter prompted NASA to change the Mars Phoenix landing site. And the spacecraft served as a communications relay for the Phoenix lander, routing commands to the craft and data from it back to Earth.

"This spacecraft truly exemplifies the best in capabilities to support science and other Martian spacecraft activities," said NASA program scientist Michael Meyer said in the release. "MRO has exceeded its own goals and our expectations."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is the prime contractor for the $720 million project and built the spacecraft.

ABOUT THE IMAGES: Click to enlarge the images of Mars and the artist's concept of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter swooping over the red planet. The global view of the planet was captured by a high-resulution camera on the craft. Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems. Image credit on the artist's concept goes to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.