Latest Mars Climate Orbiter Stories

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, halfway to Mars, adjusted its flight path today for delivery of the one-ton rover Curiosity to the surface of Mars in August. Tests completed aboard Curiosity last week confirmed the health of science instruments the mission will use to learn whether an area holding an extensive record of Martian environmental history has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life. In the second of six planned trajectory correction maneuvers during...

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft successfully refined its flight path on Wednesday with the biggest maneuver planned for the mission's journey between Earth and Mars. "We've completed a big step toward our encounter with Mars," said Brian Portock of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., deputy mission manager for the cruise phase of the mission. "The telemetry from the spacecraft and the Doppler data show that the maneuver was completed as planned." The Mars...

Excellent launch precision for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission has forestalled the need for an early trajectory correction maneuver, now not required for a month or more. That first of six planned course adjustments during the 254-day journey from Earth to Mars had originally been scheduled for 15 days after the mission's Nov. 26 launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Now, the correction maneuver will not be performed until later in December or possibly...

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., collaborated with NASA's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, N.M., and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, Calif., to successfully complete a series of thruster tests at the White Sands test facility. The test will aid in maneuvering and landing the next generation of robotic lunar landers that could be used to explore the moon's surface and other airless celestial bodies.The Robotic Lunar Lander Development Project at the...

One of the instruments on a 2016 mission to orbit Mars will provide daily maps of global, pole-to-pole, vertical distributions of the temperature, dust, water vapor and ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere.The joint European-American mission, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, will seek faint gaseous clues about possible life on Mars. This instrument, called the ExoMars Climate Sounder, will supply crucial context with its daily profiling of the atmosphere's changing structure.The European Space...

Engineers for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project have stepped up the communication rate being received from the orbiter as an early step in the process of determining why the spacecraft spontaneously rebooted its computer on Aug. 26.The latest reboot occurred at 5:42 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (12:42 Universal Time) on Wednesday, Aug. 26.Data received from the orbiter indicate that this reboot had a different signature from reboots in February and June of this year.Three new pieces of...

The U.S. space agency says its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has resumed full operations, conducting intensive science observations of Mars. The operations resumed Monday, four days after the spacecraft unexpectedly switched to its backup computer. Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver said they were able to resume operations of the spacecraft's science instruments Monday at 5:32 p.m. EDT. Now the engineers say...

The U.S. space agency says its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is working once again after an unexpected computer reboot last week. National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., sent commands Monday to power up the spacecraft's science instruments. The scientists said Tuesday monitoring confirmed all instruments were working properly. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter unexpectedly rebooted its computer Feb. 23 and put itself into a...

The U.S. space agency says its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its primary, two-year science mission. National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists said the spacecraft has returned 73 terabits of data -- more than all earlier Mars missions combined. The orbiter initially moved into position 186 miles above the surface of Mars in October 2006, subsequently conducting approximately 10,000 targeted observation sequences of high-priority areas. NASA scientists said the...

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its primary, two-year science phase. The spacecraft has found signs of a complex Martian history of climate change that produced a diversity of past watery environments.The orbiter has returned 73 terabits of science data, more than all earlier Mars missions combined. The spacecraft will build on this record as it continues to examine Mars in unprecedented detail during its next two-year phase of science operations.Among the major findings...