Word: surveyor
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Just getting to the Red Planet was a signal accomplishment for Surveyor. Launching a spacecraft from Earth to Mars, says NASA, is like firing a baseball from California to New York and hitting a particular window in the Empire State Building. Having managed this navigational tour de force, Surveyor then had to enter Mars orbit--a maneuver that carried its own risks...
...gravity, the ship had to pressurize its fuel lines and fire its retrorockets. The last time NASA tried to orbit Mars was in 1993, and that mission ended during pressurization when a fuel line hemorrhaged, sending the billion-dollar Mars Observer probe spinning into the void. Last Tuesday was Surveyor's turn to prime its lines, and despite some well-bitten nails in Mission Control, this time things went perfectly. "To see this event pass successfully is a great relief," said project manager Glenn Cunningham after the pressurization was done. Two days later, the ship fired its engine and entered...
...time being, Surveyor won't do much at Mars but orbit. The ship's path around the planet is elliptical, with a low point of 155 miles and a high point of 35,000. Each time Surveyor barnstorms Mars on its close approach, however, it drags a solar panel through the atmosphere in a process called aerobraking. A few months of this cosmic paddling will refine the orbit so that by early next year, the ship will inscribe a near perfect 235-mile circle. Then it will switch on its instruments...
When it does, it will find a lot to study. While satellites usually travel horizontally around a planet's equator, Surveyor orbits vertically, flying over both Martian poles. If there is organic chemistry on Mars, it will probably be in a wet, carbon-rich region, and the ice caps--made largely of water and carbon dioxide--fill that bill nicely...
...goes well, Surveyor will operate into the year 2000. Even before then, NASA's next Mars ships--a lander and an orbiter set to launch in 1998--should have arrived and begun their own surveys. "We're here for a long visit," said Cunningham. "We're here to stay, essentially." It will be a while before Mars is lonely again...