[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Orbiter Speeds Past Data Milestone (MRO)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 13:36:45 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201003032136.o23Lakhm015418_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-073

NASA Mars Orbiter Speeds Past Data Milestone
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
March 03, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's newest Mars orbiter, completing its fourth
year at the Red Planet next week, has just passed a data-volume
milestone unimaginable a generation ago and still difficult to fathom:
100 terabits.

That 100 trillion bits of information is more data than in 35 hours of
uncompressed high-definition video. It's also more than three times the
amount of data from all other deep-space missions combined -- not just
the ones to Mars, but every mission that has flown past the orbit of
Earth's moon.

"What is most impressive about all these data is not the sheer quantity,
but the quality of what they tell us about our neighbor planet," said
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Rich Zurek, of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The data from the orbiter's six
instruments have given us a much deeper understanding of the diversity
of environments on Mars today and how they have changed over time."

The spacecraft entered orbit around Mars on March 10, 2006, following an
Aug. 12, 2005, launch from Florida. It completed its primary science
phase in 2008 and continues investigations of Mars' surface, subsurface
and atmosphere.

The orbiter sports a dish antenna 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter and
uses it to pour data Earthward at up to 6 megabits per second. Its
science instruments are three cameras, a spectrometer for identifying
minerals, a ground-penetrating radar and an atmosphere sounder.

The capability to return enormous volumes of data enables these
instruments to view Mars at unprecedented spatial resolutions. Half the
planet has been covered at 6 meters (20 feet) per pixel, and nearly 1
percent of the planet has been observed at about 30 centimeters (1 foot)
per pixel, sharp enough to discern objects the size of a desk. The
radar, provided by Italy, has looked beneath the surface in 6,500
observing strips, sampling about half the planet.

Among the mission's major findings is that the action of water on and
near the surface of Mars occurred for hundreds of millions of years.
This activity was at least regional and possibly global in extent,
though possibly intermittent. The spacecraft has also observed that
signatures of a variety of watery environments, some acidic, some
alkaline, increase the possibility that there are places on Mars that
could reveal evidence of past life, if it ever existed.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the
spacecraft development and integration contractor for the project and
built the spacecraft.

The Shallow Radar instrument was provided by the Italian Space Agency,
and its operations are led by the InfoCom Department, University of Rome
"La Sapienza." Thales Alenia Space Italia, in Rome, is the Italian Space
Agency's prime contractor for the radar instrument. Astro Aerospace of
Carpinteria, Calif., a business unit of Los Angeles-based Northrop
Grumman Corp., developed the instrument's antenna as a subcontractor to
Thales Alenia Space Italia.

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2010-073
Received on Wed 03 Mar 2010 04:36:45 PM PST