[meteorite-list] NASA's Multipurpose Mars Mission Successfully Launched

[Ron Baalke]

Dolores Beasley 
Headquarters, Washington                         August 12, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-1753)

George Diller
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
(Phone: 321/867-2468)

Guy Webster 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-6278)

RELEASE: 05-219

NASA'S MULTIPURPOSE MARS MISSION SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED 

A seven-month flight to Mars began this morning for NASA's Mars 
Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It will inspect the red planet 
in fine detail and assist future landers.

An Atlas V launch vehicle, 19 stories tall with the two-ton 
spacecraft on top, roared away from Launch Complex 41 at Cape 
Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:43 a.m. EDT. Its powerful 
first stage consumed about 200 tons of fuel and oxygen in just 
over four minutes, then dropped away to let the upper stage 
finish the job of putting the spacecraft on a path toward Mars. 
This was the first launch of an interplanetary mission on an 
Atlas V. 

"We have a healthy spacecraft on its way to Mars and a lot of 
happy people who made this possible," said James Graf, project 
manager for MRO at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 
Pasadena, Calif. 

MRO established radio contact with controllers 61 minutes 
after launch and within four minutes of separation from the 
upper stage. Initial contact came through an antenna at the 
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Uchinoura Space Center 
in southern Japan. 

Health and status information about the orbiter's subsystems 
were received through Uchinoura and the Goldstone, Calif., 
antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network. By 14 minutes 
after separation, the craft's solar panels finished unfolding, 
enabling the MRO to start recharging batteries and operate as 
a fully functional spacecraft.

The orbiter carries six scientific instruments for examining 
the surface, atmosphere and subsurface of Mars in 
unprecedented detail from low orbit. For example, its 
high-resolution camera will reveal features as small as a 
dishwasher. NASA expects to get several times more data about 
Mars from MRO than from all previous Martian missions 
combined. 

Researchers will use the instruments to learn more about the 
history and distribution of Mars' water. That information 
will improve understanding of planetary climate change and 
will help guide the quest to answer whether Mars ever 
supported life. The orbiter will also evaluate potential 
landing sites for future missions. MRO will use its 
high-data-rate communications system to relay information 
between Mars surface missions and Earth.

Mars is 72 million miles from Earth today, but the spacecraft 
will travel more than four times that distance on its 
outbound-arc trajectory to intercept the red planet on 
March 10, 2006. The cruise period will be busy with 
checkups, calibrations and trajectory adjustments. 

On arrival day, the spacecraft will fire its engines and 
slow itself enough for Martian gravity to capture it into a 
very elongated orbit. The spacecraft will spend half a year 
gradually shrinking and shaping its orbit by "aerobraking," 
a technique using the friction of carefully calculated dips 
into the upper atmosphere to slow the vehicle. The mission's 
main science phase is scheduled to begin in November 2006.

The launch was originally scheduled for August 10, but was 
delayed first due to a gyroscope issue on a different Atlas V, 
and the next day because of a software glitch.    

The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California 
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science 
Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, 
prime contractor for the project, built both the spacecraft 
and the launch vehicle. 

NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center is 
responsible for government engineering oversight of the 
Atlas V, spacecraft/launch vehicle integration and launch 
day countdown management.

For more information about MRO on the Web, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/mro

For information about NASA and other agency programs on the 
Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

-end-