Mars Exploration News  
MRO Returns First HiRISE Images of Mars

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this image March 24 of an area of the mid-latitude southern highlands of Mars with its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (SPX) Mar 24, 2006
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter returned its first test images of the Martian surface early Friday, exciting mission controllers and providing a tantalizing preview of what the orbiter will reveal when its main science mission begins next fall.

The first view released by controllers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory was taken by the spacecraft�s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE. The camera took the image from an altitude of 2,489 kilometers (1,547 miles).

MRO also pointed its two other cameras at Mars beginning at 11:36 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday, while the spacecraft collected 40 minutes of engineering test data. Those cameras are called the Context Camera and the Mars Color Imager.

"These high-resolution images of Mars are thrilling, and unique given the early morning time-of-day. The final orbit of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be over Mars in the mid-afternoon, like Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey," said MRO mission principal investigator Alfred McEwen, of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

"These images provide the first opportunity to test camera settings and the spacecraft's ability to point the camera with Mars filling the instruments� field of view," said Steve Saunders, the mission's program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. "The information learned will be used to prepare for the primary mission next fall."

Saunders said the main purpose of these images is to enable the camera team to develop calibration and image-processing procedures such as the precise corrections needed for color imaging and for high-resolution surface measurements from stereo pairs of images.

To get desired groundspeeds and lighting conditions for the test images, researchers programmed the cameras to shoot while the spacecraft was flying at the 2,489-kilometer (1,547 mile) altitude - or about nine times higher than the range planned for the orbiter's primary science mission. Nevertheless, HiRISE produced a resolution of about 2.5 meters (8 feet) per pixel - an object 8 feet in diameter would appear as a dot - comparable to some of the best resolution previously achieved from Mars orbit.

Further processing of the images during the next week or two is expected to combine narrow swaths into broader views and show color in some portions.

MRO has been flying in elongated orbits around Mars since it entered orbit on March 10. Every 35 hours, it has swung about 44,000 kilometers (27,000 miles) away from the planet then come back within about 425 kilometers (264 miles) of the Martian surface.

Mission operations teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif, and at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, continue preparing for aerobraking. That process will use about 550 careful dips into the atmosphere during the next seven months to shrink the orbit to a near-circular shape less than 300 kilometers (200 miles) above the ground.

For its first test images, the orbiter transmitted more than 25 gigabits of data, enough to nearly fill five CD-ROMs. The data were received through NASA's Deep Space Network station at Canberra, Australia, and sent to JPL. They were made available to the camera teams at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, Calif.

Mission scientists said additional processing has begun for release of other images from the test in a few days.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
by Staff Writers Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Mars Meteorite Similar To Bacteria-Etched Earth Rocks
Corvallis OR (SPX) Mar 24, 2006
A new study of a meteorite that originated from Mars has revealed a series of microscopic tunnels that are similar in size, shape and distribution to tracks left on Earth rocks by feeding bacteria. And though researchers were unable to extract DNA from the Martian rocks, the finding nonetheless adds intrigue to the search for life beyond Earth.









  • Could NASA Get To Pluto Faster? Space Expert Says Yes - By Thinking Nuclear
  • NASA plans to send new robot to Jupiter
  • Los Alamos Hopes To Lead New Era Of Nuclear Space Tranportion With Jovian Mission
  • Boeing Selects Leader for Nuclear Space Systems Program

  • Bulgarians In Space Property Buying Spree
  • Students Race To The Future In NASA's Great Moonbuggy Race
  • SMART-1 Tracks Crater Lichtenberg And Young Lunar Basalts
  • Quantum Technique Can Foil Hackers

  • BAE Systems Radiation Hardened Computers Help NASA Success
  • European Space Camp In The Land Of The Midnight Sun
  • Space Tourism Lures A Rising Number Of US Entrepreneurs
  • Resisting Radiation

  • "Zero G and I Feel Fine"
  • To Pluto And Beyond
  • New Horizons Update: 'Boulder' and 'Baltimore'
  • New Horizons Set For A Comfortable Cruise Out To Jupiter And Pluto Transfer

  • New Red Spot Growing Fast On Jupiter
  • Flow Of High-Pressure Form Of Ice Tells Tales Of Interiors Of Giant Icy Moons
  • NASA Budget Shuts Out Icy Moons Mission
  • University Of Alberta Scientist Offers Clues To Windy Jupiter

  • ESA Wants Amateur Astronomers To Help Venus Express
  • Earth Set For Express Meeting With Venus
  • Venus Express Closing In On Destination
  • TPS Picks 'Postcards From Venus' Winners

  • Vortices Abound In Saturn's Upper Atmosphere
  • Saturn's Clouds Caught In Shear Zone
  • Three Moons, Rings And A Phantom Saturn
  • Tethys And Pointed Rings

  • Cadet-Built Satellite Set For Afternoon Launch
  • Four More Glonass-M Satellites To Be Constructed In 2006
  • Satellite Multicasting Improves Educational Information Delivery
  • Radar Altimetry Shows Warming Affecting Polar Glaciers

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement