Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: The First Months

30 April 2007

Jim Erickson, Dan Johnston and Terry Z. Martin

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was launched in 2005 to search for evidence that water persisted on the surface of Mars for a long period of time. While other Mars missions have shown that water flowed across the surface in Mars' history, it remains a mystery whether liquid water existed long enough to provide a habitat for life.

After a year’s cruise and aerobraking to reach its science orbit in September 2006, the MRO has begun to study the history of water on Mars with a suite of high-resolution observing cameras, spectrometers and navigational instruments. In this lecture, the MRO team describe their initial findings.

Broad Topics: Physical Science

Sub-topics: Astronomy & Astrophysics

Areas: ANU College of Science

Looking East to 'Tyrone'. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornel

Jim Erickson : Jim has worked on numerous spaceflight projects including the Viking Mission to Mars, the Voyager mission to the outer planets, Mars Observer, and managed the Galileo Project to the planet Jupiter. Jim managed the Mars Exploration Rovers, two large rovers now operating on the surface of Mars, and currently manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA.

Dan Johnston: Dan has participated in the development and flight operations phases of the Mars Observer and Mars Global Surveyor missions. He has also participated in various advanced mission studies focused on remote sensing of the Earth and future Mars exploration concepts.

Terry Z. Martin: Terry has worked on the Viking mission to Mars, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, and Mars Global Surveyor. Now he is an investigation scientist for the CRISM experiment on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Part of the 2007 Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series