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Orbiter Successfully Enters Orbit

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hi-mars dept.

dylanduck writes "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has slipped safely into orbit - unlike two of the last four orbiters NASA sent to Mars. Remember Mars Climate Orbiter and the mix up between metric and English units? MRO is going to send back 34 trillion bytes of data, more than all the previous missions put together." From the article: "The spacecraft will use a suite of six instruments, including the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet. This will image objects as small as 1-metre wide and should be able to snap pictures of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. The instruments will track the planet's weather, geology and mineralogy, and even probe about a kilometre beneath its surface to hunt for water."

7 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. For more information by iced_773 · · Score: 5, Informative


    NPR has an area on their website covering not only this orbiter but past probes as well.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5257061

  2. trillion? by mtenhagen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "34 trillion bytes of data" who on earth (or mars) wrote this? Dont we have mega/giga/tera any more?

    For christ sake this is slashdot!

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  3. ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!!!! by Kittie+Rose · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, that's a lot of data to be sending back. I just hope those funny little Green Men aren't going to be using up all the space bandwidth looking at porn from Uranus.

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  4. Re:most powerful camera? by JetJaguar · · Score: 5, Informative
    The msss specifications are a little misleading. They are sampling at 50 cm/pixel, but that isn't really the same as the resolving power. The actual resolving power is roughly twice the sampling rate, or 1 meter.

    HiRISE, under the best of conditions, will do about 30 cm/pixel sampling, giving it a resolving power of just over half a meter. So it is indeed the most powerful camera in Mars Orbit.

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  5. Re:Beagle 2 by tigerc · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, the Mars Global Surveyor did take a picture of (albeit farther away) of Spirit's landing site-tracks, heat shield, and parachute. You can't see the actual rover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mgs_mer.gif

    This might be of interest to you. From the nasa website: "The Mars Orbiter Camera can resolve features on the surface of Mars as small as a few meters or yards across from Mars Global Surveyor's orbital altitude of 350 to 405 kilometers (217 to 252 miles). From a distance of 100 kilometers (62 miles), the camera would be able to resolve features substantially smaller than 1 meter or yard across" Take a look at the pictures on this site: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mg s-images.html especially the Mars Odessey as seen by the Surveyor

    The Surveyor orbits at 235 miles above Mars.

  6. Re:Not English by Decaff · · Score: 5, Funny

    I went to an English "Public School" and am now over 40. I only know my weight in kilogrammes. We went metric a long time ago!

    If only we had. There are miles to go yet before we have fully.....

  7. Re:Not English by Timmmm · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ok here is a definitive list:

    People weight: Most people use stones colloquially, lots use kg though.
    Milk: Supermarkets sell in units of 1,2,4,6 pints (though they are marked in ml).
    Some shops sell in 500ml etc but it isn't very common. Delivered milk is in pints.
    All other food: Sold & marked in metric units.
    Road signs: All in miles, mph, and yards.
    Petrol: Litres
    General distance: Miles
    Clothes dimensions: Inches.

    All science/engineering is done in SI units. God knows why you would use anything else.