[meteorite-list] Prolific NASA Mars Orbiter Passes Big Data Milestone (MRO)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 14:45:35 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201311082245.rA8MjZLR004303_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-324

Prolific NASA Mars Orbiter Passes Big Data Milestone
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
November 08, 2013

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has overhauled understanding
of the Red Planet since 2006, has passed 200 terabits in the amount of
science data returned. The data returned by the mission alone is more
than three times the total data returned via NASA's Deep Space Network
for all the other missions managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., over the past 10 years.

While the 200 terabits number includes all the data this orbiter has
relayed to Earth from robots on the surface of Mars, about 99.9 percent
of the volume has come from the six science instruments aboard Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter. The 200 terabits are equivalent to the data
volume in three nonstop months of high-definition video. The number does
not include the engineering data that specialists operating the orbiter
from JPL and Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, use for monitoring
its health and performance.

The spacecraft pours data Earthward using a dish antenna 10 feet (3
meters) across and a transmitter powered by 215 square feet (20 square
meters) of solar cells. Multiple sessions each day with giant dish
antennas of the Deep Space Network in California, Spain and Australia
enable Earth to receive such a torrent of data from the orbiter.

"The sheer volume is impressive, but of course what's most important is
what we are learning about our neighboring planet," said JPL's Rich
Zurek, the project scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The orbiter's instruments have examined Mars from subsurface to
atmosphere in unprecedented detail. One instrument has provided images
revealing features as small as a desk in surface areas equivalent to
one-third of the United States (1.92 percent of Mars' surface). Another
has covered areas equivalent to about 82 percent of Earth's land area
(83.6 percent of Mars' surface), with resolution showing features
smaller than a tennis court. These cameras have viewed many areas
repeatedly, providing three-dimensional information from stereo and
revealing several types of landscape changes over time. Other
instruments identify surface minerals, probe underground layers, examine
cross-sections of the atmosphere and track weather globally.

"The mission has taught us about three very different periods of Mars
history," Zurek said.

Its observations of the heavily cratered terrains of Mars, the oldest on
the planet, show that different types of ancient watery environments
formed water-related minerals. Some of these would have been more
favorable for life than others. In more recent times, water appears to
have cycled as a gas between polar ice deposits and lower-latitude
deposits of ice and snow. Extensive layering in ice or rock probably
took hundreds of thousands to millions of years to form. The present
climate is also dynamic, with volatile carbon dioxide and, possibly,
flows of briny water forming dark streaks that are observed to appear in
the warmest seasons and places and fade in colder weather.

"Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has shown that Mars is still an active
planet, with changes such as new craters, avalanches and dust storms,"
Zurek said. "Mars is a partially frozen world, but not frozen in time."

Each of the 200 trillion bits of science data from the orbiter has
followed a complex path, aided by sophisticated software to make it
feasible for a small team to handle tens of billions of new bits daily
and get the data products to the appropriate scientists.

Data gathered by the orbiter's instruments and relayed from rovers are
recorded onto the orbiter's central memory. Each orbit around Mars takes
the spacecraft about two hours. For part of each orbit, Mars itself
usually blocks the communication path to Earth. When Earth is in view, a
Deep Space Network antenna on whichever part of Earth is turned toward
Mars at that hour can be listening. Complex preparations coordinate
scheduling the use of the network's antennas by all deep-space missions
-- 32 of them this month. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter typically gets
several sessions every day.

"The Deep Space Network collects the incoming data into 30-minute
chunks," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter software engineer Bryan Allen,
of JPL. "At that point, it doesn't matter which products are in it --
just a big pile of bits."

The chunks of mixed data from the antenna stations in California, Spain
and Australia come to JPL, where software sorts it into specific
products, such as an image from a camera, measurements from a scan of
the atmosphere, radar readings from the subsurface sounder, or data from
a rover. Another process at JPL determines which products to send where
-- such as to a mineral-mapping team in Maryland, a camera team in
Arizona, a radar team in Italy. On a typical recent day, the system
sorted 58 billion bits from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter into 303 data
products.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission met all its science goals in a
two-year primary science phase ending in 2008. Three extensions, the
latest beginning in 2012, have added to the science returns. The
longevity of this mission and of NASA's even longer-lived Mars Odyssey
orbiter, which has been studying Mars since 2002, have given researchers
tools to study seasonal and longer-term changes on the Red Planet.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey projects for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space
Systems built both orbiters and collaborates with JPL to operate them.
JPL operates the Deep Space Network for NASA's Human Exploration and
Operations Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ .

DC Agle/Guy Webster 818-393-9011/354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle at jpl.nasa.gov / guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2013-324
Received on Fri 08 Nov 2013 05:45:35 PM PST