Martian doings
By Ron Cowen
Two Mars vehicles—an orbiting spacecraft and a robot on the planet’s surface—have reached new milestones in their missions. Seven months after its arrival, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA’s most recent envoy to that planet, has finished reshaping its orbit into the nearly circular, low-altitude path that will give it a close view of the Red Planet. During the maneuvers, flight engineers sent the craft sailing through the upper layers of Mars’ atmosphere 426 times, using friction to gradually decrease Orbiter’s highest altitude from 45,000 kilometers to 486 km.
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During its 2-year study, set to begin in November, Orbiter is expected to return more data about Mars than all previous Mars missions combined. For example, the craft will view the 70-meter-deep crater Victoria and will map the mineral content of that region.