NASA’s next mission to Mars, scheduled to launch as soon as Wednesday morning, is a massive orbiter designed to scrutinize the red planet in intimate detail, from its atmosphere to a mile below its surface.
At a news conference Monday, agency officials described the $720 million Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, built in Colorado, in superlatives.
At 2 tons, it’s the heaviest spacecraft ever sent to Mars, and it will carry the most sophisticated camera sent into space.
The spacecraft’s antenna is so powerful it should send home more information about the planet than all previous missions combined, said Jim Graf, project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
“We are going to be awash in data, which will enable us to better understand the planet as a whole,” Graf said.
Dozens of Colorado researchers have gathered at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, for Wednesday’s expected launch on an Atlas V rocket, built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Jefferson County.
Lockheed engineers also built the orbiter, at a cost of nearly $500 million.
Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. engineers in Boulder built the spacecraft’s telescopelike camera, which will shoot pictures five times sharper than any existing images of Mars from space, according to Ball spokesman David Beachley.
From orbit 190 miles above Mars, Ball’s camera will shoot pictures detailed enough to show features the size of a kitchen table, Beachley said.
An Italian-built radar will peer nearly a mile underground to look for water ice, Graf said, and other instruments will study clouds, dust and temperatures from the planet’s atmosphere and its subsurface.
Scientists hope the orbiter will let them uncover details about the history of Mars’ water, which apparently flowed as liquid across its surface a few billion years ago.
Liquid water is thought to be essential for life, and some scientists consider Mars a good place to look for evidence that life has existed beyond Earth.
NASA officials will also rely on the new orbiter’s powerful camera to select landing spots for future missions to Mars and on its antenna for relaying information back to Earth from those missions.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will take seven months to travel to Mars and then several weeks “aerobraking,” or slowing down, in the planet’s atmosphere.
By November 2006, the craft should have settled into its final orbit, about 190 miles above the planet, and be ready to deliver high-resolution images and other data.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
