This animation portrays the movements that NASA's Mars Global Surveyor
undergoes to acquire an enhanced-resolution image using a technique
called compensated pitch and roll targeted observation. The camera team
and spacecraft team developed the technique for increasing the resolution
in images taken by the spacecraft's Mars Orbiter Camera. Controllers
adjust the rotation rate of the spacecraft to match the ground speed
under the camera while the orbiter passes over the target.
Even without using this technique, the Mars Orbiter Camera acquires the
highest-resolution images ever taken from a Mars orbiting spacecraft,
revealing the martian surface with a typical pixel size of 1.5 meters by
1.5 meters (5 feet by 5 feet.) From the same camera, compensated pitch
and roll targeted observations typically have a resolution of 1.5 meters
(5 feet) per pixel in the cross-track (east-west) direction and just
one-half meter (1.6 feet) in the down-track (north-south) direction.
Mars Global Surveyor is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the
NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
