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Post Info TOPIC: Mars Global Surveyor image


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MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR November 27, 2006

o Dust-Mantled Olympus Mons Flows (Released 27 November 2006)

Dust-covered lava flows on the lowermost south flank of Olympus Mons are captured in this 3 kilometres wide Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) view acquired during northern summer on 12 October 2006. One levied lava channel just south (below) the centre left of the image disappears into a thick, pitted and cratered dust mantle.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left/upper left.
The image is located near 13.8N, 134.1W. North is toward the top/upper right.

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The US space agency (Nasa) says the veteran Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is probably lost and unrecoverable.
The orbiter entered a "safe mode" as it struggled to control a solar panel, and engineers have not been able to contact the probe since 2 November.
Nasa will use the Rover Opportunity on the surface of the Red Planet to try to speak to the 10-year-old spacecraft in the next couple of days.

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NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Nov. 21, to discuss the status and science accomplishments of the Mars Global Surveyor. The 10-year old spacecraft is the oldest of five NASA spacecraft currently active at the red planet.

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MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR November 20, 2006

o Sharp View of Gullies in Southern Winter (Released 20 November 2006)

Crisp details in a suite of mid-latitude gullies on a crater wall are captured in this Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) view obtained in southern winter on 12 October 2006. During southern winter, shadows are more pronounced and the atmosphere is typically quite clear. These gullies, which may have formed in relatively recent Martian history by erosion caused by flowing, liquid water, are located in a crater on the east rim of Newton Crater near 40.4S, 155.3W. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper left. The picture covers an area about 3 km wide; the crater rim is on the right side of the image, the crater floor is on the left.
North is toward the top/upper left.

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On November 2, 2006, a mere five days before the tenth anniversary of Mars Global Surveyor's launch, an onboard malfunction caused the oldest operational Mars spacecraft to lose radio contact with Earth. Contact was briefly restored on November 5, but the spacecraft hasn't been heard from since. Mission controllers are now exploring a complicated array of scenarios for what could have caused the spacecraft to stop transmitting to determine whether the spacecraft is presently alive but mute, or dead in orbit. Plans for the coming days include attempts to capture images of the errant spacecraft from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and to communicate with it using the Mars Exploration Rovers.

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NASA is running out of options for fixing a failed Mars probe that has been snapping detailed pictures of the red planet for a decade, officials said on Monday.
Mars Global Surveyor is the oldest of five NASA robotic probes checking the planet for signs that Mars once had water, which many scientists believe to be the key to learning if life ever took root there.

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MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR November 13, 2006

o Mars at LS 137 Degrees (Released 07 November 2006)

These images capture what Mars typically looks like in mid-afternoon at Ls 137 degrees. In other words, with the exception of occasional differences in weather and polar frost patterns, this is what the red planet looks like this month (November 2006).
Six views are shown, including the two polar regions. These are composites of 24-26 Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) daily global mapping images acquired at red and blue wavelengths. The 'hole' over the south pole is an area where no images were obtained, because this polar region is enveloped in wintertime darkness.
Presently, it is summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere. Ls, solar longitude, is a measure of the time of year on Mars. Mars travels 360 degrees around the Sun in 1 Mars year. The year begins at Ls 0 degrees, the start of northern spring and southern autumn. Northern summer/southern winter begins at Ls 90 degrees, northern autumn/southern spring start at Ls 180 degrees, and northern winter/southern summer begin at Ls 270 degrees.
Ls 137 degrees occurs in the middle of this month (November 2006). The pictures show how Mars appeared to the MOC wide angle cameras at a previous Ls 137 degrees in March 2001. The six views are centered on the Tharsis region (upper left), Acidalia and Mare Eyrthraeum (upper right), Syrtis Major and Hellas (middle left), Elysium and Mare Cimmeria (middle right), the north pole (lower left), and the south pole (lower right).

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The spacecraft that has operated longer than any ever sent to Mars may be in trouble.
Mars Global Surveyor, which has operated years beyond its original mission, has communicated only intermittently for more than a week. Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California continue to try to re-establish contact with the probe.

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Engineers are striving to restore full communications with NASA's Mars Global Surveyor on the 10th anniversary of the spacecraft's Nov. 7, 1996, launch.
The orbiter is the oldest of five NASA spacecraft currently active at the red planet. Its original mission was to examine Mars for a full Martian year, roughly two Earth years. Once that period elapsed, considering the string of discoveries, NASA extended the mission repeatedly, most recently on Oct. 1 of this year.
The orbiter has operated longer than any other spacecraft ever sent to Mars. It has returned more information about Mars than all earlier missions combined and has succeeded far enough beyond its original mission to see two later NASA orbiters arrive: Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Among many important accomplishments so far, Mars Global Surveyor has found many young gullies apparently cut by flowing water, discovered water-related mineral deposits that became a destination for NASA's Opportunity rover, mapped the planet topographically and examined many potential landing sites on Mars.
On Nov. 2, one orbit after commands were sent for a routine manoeuvre to move the solar panels, the spacecraft reported that the motor moving one of the arrays had experienced errors. Onboard software responded as programmed, switching the spacecraft to a backup motor controller, then to a backup circuitry connection.
Following these indications of difficulty, a two-day lapse in contact occurred on Nov. 3 and 4. The signal from the spacecraft was received on Nov. 5 during four different orbits, but it did not carry any data from the spacecraft. The signal's frequency indicated that the spacecraft had entered safe mode, a pre-programmed state of restricted activity in which it awaits instructions from Earth.
No further signal was heard during subsequent orbits on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6. Engineers concluded that the spacecraft had made an additional pre-programmed response, intended to help it survive when it senses that a solar array is stuck. The spacecraft turns that array toward the sun to maintain its power supply and rotates the rest of the spacecraft in the same direction, thereby making communication with Earth less effective.

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MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR, November 7, 2006

o MGS Mars Orbiter Camera: 10 Years In Space (Released 07 November 2006)

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was launched 10 years ago today, on 7 November 1996. The spacecraft reached Mars on 12 September 1997, and has been observing the ever-changing red planet over the course of the past 5 Martian years.
The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) has spent 10 years in the near vacuum of space - not bad, considering that the Primary Mission, at the time of launch, was expected to end in early 2000. Since September 1997, MOC has been acquiring new images that highlight the geology and meteorology of Mars; more than 240,000 images have been returned to Earth. A recent example, from 15 October 2006, is shown here.

Two annular (i.e., somewhat circular) clouds are seen in the upper left corner of this mosaic of MOC wide angle camera daily global mapping images. To the right of the picture's centre is the Martian north polar cap. The image has a scale of about 7.5 kilometres per pixel. Annular clouds are common in mid-northern summer in the north polar region, and may result from eddy currents in the lower atmosphere. The appearance of such clouds happens every year; this year they came like clockwork within a two-week forecasted period, based on the previous 4 Martian years of experience gained from MGS MOC daily global imaging.
Despite their superficial resemblance to Earth-orbiting satellite views of hurricanes, these cloud features are not the result of strong winds, and they typically dissipate later in the day. The pictures used to make this mosaic were acquired less than 2 days before the MOC was turned off for MGS's fifth Mars-Earth Solar Conjunction period. During Conjunction, Mars was on the other side of the Sun, relative to Earth, and thus MGS could not transmit data (through the Sun) during the second half of October.

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