NASA Probe Fires Engine to Enter Mars Orbit

NASA probe fires engine to enter Mars orbit

LOS ANGELES, March 10 (Xinhua) — A NASA spacecraft designed to explore Mars with the most advanced technology fired its thrusters Friday noon to enter a long-looping Mars orbit.

After a seven-month journey, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began a series of maneuvers called “Mars Orbit insertion” at 1:24 p.m. Pacific time as scheduled.

The “Mars Orbit insertion” is the point in the mission when the spacecraft arrives just short of Mars, fires onboard rockets to slow its speed relative to the planet, and then lets itself be captured by Martian gravity.

When it is approaching the Mars, the spacecraft is passing under the southern hemisphere at an altitude of about 300 kilometers, traveling at about 3 kilometers per second.

In order to be captured into orbit around Mars, the spacecraft will need to perform a maneuver to slow the orbiter by about 1,000 meters per second. The orbiter fired its six main engines for about 25 minutes.

For most of the burn, the signal from the spacecraft will be temporarily lost as the orbiter goes behind Mars. At this time, the mission team holds a collective breath, waiting for the orbiter to appear again approximately 30 minutes later.

Mission controllers called the course “risky,” since two of the last four orbiters NASA sent to Mars did not survive.

“We have been preparing for years for the critical events the spacecraft must execute on Friday,” Jim Graf, project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“By all indications, we’re in great shape to succeed, but Mars has taught us never to get overconfident. Two of the last four orbiters NASA sent to Mars did not survive final approach.”

If successful, the orbiter will gradually dip into the upper atmosphere of the red planet in half a year.

Based on discoveries by earlier Mars missions, the spacecraft, the largest one sent to Mars by NASA in 30 years, is designated to study the Martian surface, atmosphere and potential underground water and ice deposits with six advanced instruments onboard.

It will send home up to 10 times as much data per minute as any previous Mars mission, scientists said. Its discoveries are expected to help choose sites for future human landing on Mars.