Mars Orbiter Camera

The Mars Orbiter Camera and Mars Observer Camera (MOC) were scientific instruments on board the Mars Observer and Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. The camera was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) for NASA and the cost of the whole MOC scientific investigation project was about US$ 44 million, higher than anticipated in the budget.

Introduction

Originally named Mars Observer Camera, it was selected by NASA in 1986 for the Mars Observer mission, but it returned only three images of planet Mars before the loss of the spacecraft in 1993. A second camera of the same specifications, renamed to Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), was built (with assistance by California Institute of Technology) and launched on board the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft in 1996. The camera returned 243,668 images while in orbit around Mars, before the loss of the MGS spacecraft in 2006. Mars Orbiter Camera was operated by its manufacturer, Malin Space Science Systems, from its facilities in San Diego, California.

List of Mars orbiters

The following table is a list of Mars orbiters, consisting of space probes which were launched from Earth and are currently orbiting Mars. As of November 2015, there are thirteen known artificial satellites in Mars' orbit, five of which are actively collecting data.

History

20th century

The Soviets' Mars program and NASA's Mariner program became the two first successful space programs that intended to explore Mars through orbiters. Mars 2, Mars 3 and Mariner 9 were all launched into space in May 1971, and all entered Mars’ orbit that same year. NASA's Mariner 9 reached the planet's orbit first on November 14, narrowly beating the Soviet's spacecraft amid the space race, and subsequently became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.

Contact with all eight Mars orbiters launched during the 20th century has been lost. NASA's four spacecraft are conjectured to remain in Mars' orbit. Mariner 9, Viking 1 and Viking 2 are expected to lower down into the Martian atmosphere by 2022 and either burn up or crash into the planet's surface.Mars Global Surveyor is expected to crash onto the surface of the planet by 2047. The fate of the Soviet's three Mars program orbiters and Phobos 2 remains unclear, but they are still presumed to be in orbit.

2001 Mars Odyssey

2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, and the Phoenix lander to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001 on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and reached Mars orbit on October 24, 2001, at 02:30 UTC (October 23, 19:30 PDT, 22:30 EDT). It is currently in a polar orbit around Mars with an altitude of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles.

Mars 2022

The Mars 2022 orbiter is a concept study by NASA to develop a Mars communications satellite with a modest mapping capability payload, and propelled by a solar electric ion thruster.

The orbiter is proposed to be launched in September 2022 to link ground controllers with rovers and landers and extend mapping capabilities expected to be lost when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2001 Mars Odyssey stop functioning.

Features

Key features under study include solar electric ion drive engines using Hall effect, better solar arrays, and broadband laser communications (optic communication) between Earth and Mars.

The orbiter is conceptually similar to the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, canceled in 2005, and could be a technology precursor for a future round-trip sample return mission and human expeditions to Mars. Robert Lock is leading the concept studies for the 2022 orbiter.

Concern in NASA is that the currently used relay satellites, 2001 Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, may stop functioning, resulting in the need to press the MAVEN science orbiter into use as a backup telecommunications relay. However, the highly elliptical orbit of MAVEN will limit its usefulness as a relay for surface operations.