6/16/2023 0 Comments Mars climate orbiter![]() "Mars Climate Orbiter will do what weather satellites do - it will take pictures of clouds, it will look for storms and it will try to understand the atmospheric winds by measuring temperature and pressure and by watching how the atmospheric distributions of dust and water vapor change with time." ![]() Richard Zurek, project scientist for the orbiter at JPL. Weather is what happens from day-to-day and the long term effect of all of that is climate," said Dr. "We're interested in what happens during all the seasons of a Mars year. It was acquired on 7 September 1999 at about 16:30 UTC (9:30 AM PDT), when the spacecraft was approximately 4.5 million kilometers (2.8 million miles) from the planet. Left: This image is the first view of Mars taken by the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) Mars Color Imager (MARCI). After the Lander's surface mission ends in February 2000, the orbiter's science mission begins with routine monitoring of the atmosphere, surface and polar caps for a complete Martian year (687 Earth days), the equivalent of almost two Earth years. Mars Climate Orbiter's first assignment after it completes aerobraking will be to serve as the communications relay for its sibling spacecraft, Mars Polar Lander, set to land near the south pole on December 3. As the spacecraft slows with each pass, the maximum altitude of the orbit will decrease and the orbit will become more circular. Friction from the atmosphere on the spacecraft and its wing-like solar array will cause the spacecraft to lose some of its momentum during each close approach. During each of its long, elliptical loops around Mars, the orbiter will pass through the upper layers of the atmosphere each time it makes its closest approach to the planet. Once captured in orbit around Mars, the orbiter will begin a period of aerobraking. Sign up for our EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery
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