NASA Mars Orbiter Speeds Past Data Milestone

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2010-073 March 3, 2010

NASA Mars Orbiter Speeds Past Data Milestone


The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-073&cid=release_2010-073

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's newest Mars orbiter, completing its fourth year at the Red Planet
next week, has just passed a data-volume milestone unimaginable a generation ago and still
difficult to fathom: 100 terabits.

That 100 trillion bits of information is more data than in 35 hours of uncompressed high-
definition video. It's also more than three times the amount of data from all other deep-space
missions combined -- not just the ones to Mars, but every mission that has flown past the orbit of
Earth's moon.

"What is most impressive about all these data is not the sheer quantity, but the quality of what
they tell us about our neighbor planet," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Rich
Zurek, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The data from the orbiter's six
instruments have given us a much deeper understanding of the diversity of environments on Mars
today and how they have changed over time."

The spacecraft entered orbit around Mars on March 10, 2006, following an Aug. 12, 2005, launch
from Florida. It completed its primary science phase in 2008 and continues investigations of
Mars' surface, subsurface and atmosphere.

The orbiter sports a dish antenna 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter and uses it to pour data
Earthward at up to 6 megabits per second. Its science instruments are three cameras, a
spectrometer for identifying minerals, a ground-penetrating radar and an atmosphere sounder.

The capability to return enormous volumes of data enables these instruments to view Mars at
unprecedented spatial resolutions. Half the planet has been covered at 6 meters (20 feet) per
pixel, and nearly 1 percent of the planet has been observed at about 30 centimeters (1 foot) per
pixel, sharp enough to discern objects the size of a desk. The radar, provided by Italy, has looked
beneath the surface in 6,500 observing strips, sampling about half the planet.

Among the mission's major findings is that the action of water on and near the surface of Mars
occurred for hundreds of millions of years. This activity was at least regional and possibly global
in extent, though possibly intermittent. The spacecraft has also observed that signatures of a
variety of watery environments, some acidic, some alkaline, increase the possibility that there are
places on Mars that could reveal evidence of past life, if it ever existed.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Denver, is the spacecraft development and integration contractor for the project
and built the spacecraft.

The Shallow Radar instrument was provided by the Italian Space Agency, and its operations are
led by the InfoCom Department, University of Rome "La Sapienza." Thales Alenia Space Italia,
in Rome, is the Italian Space Agency's prime contractor for the radar instrument. Astro
Aerospace of Carpinteria, Calif., a business unit of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp.,
developed the instrument's antenna as a subcontractor to Thales Alenia Space Italia.

-end-

To remove yourself from this mailing, please go to http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=bpLEJRNtE8KJI4I&s=eoIQJPMpHaICLOOvEoE&m=qmJXKaOTIdL5E

To remove yourself from all mailings from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, please go to http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=esIKJ0OFKbJQKeL&s=eoIQJPMpHaICLOOvEoE&m=qmJXKaOTIdL5E