- Original Caption Released with Image:
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At 7:43 a.m. EDT an Atlas V launch vehicle, 19 stories tall, with a
two-ton Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on top, lifts off the pad on
Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. All
systems performed nominally for NASA's first launch of an Atlas V on an
interplanetary mission. MRO established radio contact with controllers 61
minutes after launch and within four minutes of separation from the upper
stage. Initial contact came through an antenna at the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency's Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan. Mars is 72
million miles from Earth today, but the spacecraft will travel more than
four times that distance on its outbound-arc trajectory to intercept the
red planet on March 10, 2006. The orbiter carries six scientific
instruments for examining the surface, atmosphere and subsurface of Mars
in unprecedented detail from low orbit. NASA expects to get several times
more data about Mars from MRO than from all previous Martian missions
combined. Researchers will use the instruments to learn more about the
history and distribution of Mars' water. That information will improve
understanding of planetary climate change and will help guide the quest
to answer whether Mars ever supported life. The orbiter will also evaluate
potential landing sites for future missions.
- Image Credit:
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NASA/JPL/KSC/Lockheed Martin Space Systems
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