NASA's Multipurpose Mars Mission Successfully Launched

An Atlas V launch vehicle, 19 stories tall with the two-tonspacecraft on top, roared away from Launch Complex 41 at Cape CanaveralAir Force Station at 4:43 a.m. PDT on August 12. Its powerful firststage consumed about 200 tons of fuel and oxygen in just over fourminutes, then dropped away to let the upper stage finish the job ofputting the spacecraft on a path toward Mars. This was the first launchof an interplanetary mission on an Atlas V.

"We have a healthy spacecraft on its way to Mars and a lot of happypeople who made this possible," said James Graf, project manager forMars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Pasadena, Calif.

The spacecraft established radio contact with controllers 61 minutesafter launch and within four minutes of separation from the upperstage. Initial contact came through an antenna at the Japan AerospaceExploration Agency's Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan.

Health and status information about the orbiter's subsystems werereceived through Uchinoura and the Goldstone, Calif., antenna stationof NASA's Deep Space Network. By 14 minutes after separation, thecraft's solar panels finished unfolding, enabling it to startrecharging batteries and operate as a fully functional spacecraft.

The orbiter carries six scientific instruments for examining thesurface, atmosphere and subsurface of Mars in unprecedented detail fromlow orbit. For example, its high-resolution camera will reveal surfacefeatures as small as a dishwasher. NASA expects to get several timesmore data about Mars from the orbiter than from all previous Martianmissions combined.

Researchers will use the instruments to learn more about the historyand distribution of Mars' water. That information will improveunderstanding of planetary climate change and will help guide the questto answer whether Mars ever supported life. The orbiter will alsoevaluate potential landing sites for future missions. The MarsReconnaissance Orbiter will use its high-data-rate communicationssystem to relay information between Mars surface missions and Earth.

Mars is 72 million miles from Earth today, but the spacecraft willtravel more than four times that distance on its outbound-arctrajectory to intercept the red planet on March 10, 2006. The cruiseperiod will be busy with checkups, calibrations and trajectoryadjustments.

On arrival day, the spacecraft will fire its engines and slow itselfenough for Martian gravity to capture it into a very elongated orbit.The spacecraft will spend half a year gradually shrinking and shapingits orbit by "aerobraking," a technique using the friction of carefullycalculated dips into the upper atmosphere to slow the vehicle. Themission's main science phase is scheduled to begin in November 2006.

The launch was originally scheduled for August 10, but was delayedfirst due to a gyroscope issue on a different Atlas V, and the next daybecause of a software glitch.

The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the CaliforniaInstitute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science MissionDirectorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, prime contractorfor the project, built both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle.

NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center isresponsible for government engineering oversight of the Atlas V,spacecraft/launch vehicle integration and launch day countdownmanagement.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

For information about NASA and other agency programs on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html .