Mars Orbiter Completes Prime Mission

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-234 Dec. 11, 2008

Mars Orbiter Completes Prime Mission

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its primary, two-year
science phase. The spacecraft has found signs of a complex Martian history of climate change that
produced a diversity of past watery environments.

The orbiter has returned 73 terabits of science data, more than all earlier Mars missions combined.
The spacecraft will build on this record as it continues to examine Mars in unprecedented detail
during its next two-year phase of science operations.

Among the major findings during the primary science phase is the revelation 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 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.

Since moving into position 186 miles above Mars' surface in October 2006, the orbiter also has
conducted 10,000 targeted observation sequences of high-priority areas. It has imaged nearly 40
percent of the planet at a resolution that can reveal house-sized objects in detail, with one percent in
enough detail to see desk-sized features. This survey has covered almost 60 percent of Mars in
mineral mapping bands at stadium-size resolution. The orbiter also assembled nearly 700 daily global
weather maps, dozens of atmospheric temperature profiles, and hundreds of radar profiles of the
subsurface and the interior of the polar caps.

"These observations are now at the level of detail necessary to test hypotheses about when and where
water has changed Mars and where future missions will be most productive as they search for
habitable regions on Mars," said Richard Zurek, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Included in the observations are hundreds of stereo pairs used to make detailed topography maps and
classic images in support of other Mars missions. One image showed the Mars rover Opportunity
poised on the rim of Victoria Crater, and another was of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander during its
descent to the surface. Orbiter data prompted the Phoenix team to change the spacecraft's landing site,
and are being used to select the landing location for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, which is
scheduled for launch in 2011. For five months of Phoenix operations on Mars that ended in
November, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter shared the vital
communications roles of relaying commands to the lander, and data from Phoenix back to Earth.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found repetitive layering in Mars' permanent polar ice caps.
The patterns suggest climate change cycles continuing to the present. They may record possible
effects of cyclical changes in Mars' tilt and orbit on global sunlight patterns. Recent climate cycles
are indicated by radar detection of subsurface icy deposits outside the polar regions, closer to the
equator, where near-surface ice is not permanently stable. Other results reveal details of ancient
streambeds, atmospheric hazes and motions of water, along with the ever-changing weather on Mars.

Most observations from the orbiter will be discontinued for a few weeks while the sun is between
Earth and Mars, which will disrupt communications. This month, the orbiter will begin a new phase,
with science observations continuing as Mars makes another orbit around the sun, which takes
approximately two Earth years.

"This spacecraft truly exemplifies the best in capabilities to support science and other Martian
spacecraft activities," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "MRO has exceeded its own goals and our expectations. We look
forward to more discoveries as we continue to look at the Red Planet in spectacular detail."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the
prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. For more information about the mission,
visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

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