Questions tagged [mars-reconnaissance-orbiter]
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Did the rovers' cruise balance masses have a noticeable impact on Mars?
Perseverance (2021) and Curiosity (2012) each ejected, among many other things, two tungsten "cruise balance masses" before reaching Mars's atmosphere, each about 70 kg.
Were their impacts ...
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Why did MRO have to "both pitch upward and roll hard to the left" to point exactly at Perseverance during the entry, descent and landing phase?
The HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped a beautiful photo of Perseverance falling through the Martian atmosphere hanging from its parachute.
This photo can be found here on the ...
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How long did the plasma blackouts of Perseverance's signals to MRO and direct-to-Earth last during its seven minutes of terror?
Congratulations to NASA JPL and the Perseverance Team and everyone else who participated and contributed in some way!
Watching the live feed of the EDL seven minutes of terror I heard there was a ...
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Why is the along track resolution of the MRO's SHARAD limited to >300m?
I've been reading about the SHAllow RADar instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but I am struggling to understand why the along track resolution of its radargrams is so large.
As I ...
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Why aren't there HiRISE observation footprints near the Martian poles?
Browsing the HiRISE observations of Mars, I noticed that there aren't any observation footprints at a latitude lower than -65° or higher than 65°. Why is this? Is there something I am not seeing? Is ...
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Curiosity / MRO UHF connection and weak signal modulation
In the case of MRO and Curiosity communications via UHF, an active feedback system was implemented in which Curiosity monitored the quality/SNR of the connection and commanded Curiosity to increase / ...
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Images of Mars Phoenix Lander showing what's happened after more cycles of winter ice build-up?
The Mars Phoenix Lander's End of Mission is an interesting story. It was left in a state such that had it survived the Mars winter of 2008, it could potentially be contacted again in 2010.
The Phoenix ...
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Is the "Mars blue dune" actually blue? And what makes it so?
NASA recently released an image of a blue dune on Mars. The accompanying story seems to suggest to me that it is a false color image - some property of that part of the image is detected and rendered ...
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Why are the gaps in MRO global images of mars so irregular and sometimes filled in?
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images of Earth snow nice, regular repeating gaps in longitude where the viewing angle is too far for a given pass.
But the large GIF shown in ...
- 149k
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Can HiRISE photograph Starman?
On Oct 7, 2020, according to the latest predictions, the Tesla Roadster/ Starman will pass within 0.05 AU (7.4 million km). Could HiRISE image it with any success, and as anything but a dot?
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What is the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's orbital period?
According to Wikipedia, the MRO has an orbital period of 112 minutes:
In September 2006 MRO fired its thrusters twice more to fine-tune its final, nearly circular orbit to approximately 250 to 316 ...
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Any news about the Mars-3 landing site since early 2013?
The image below of Mars' surface and text is from the NASA JPL Photojournal Catalog: PIA16920: Could This Be the Mars Soviet 3 Lander?
The latest data shown for the Mars 3 site in Wikipedia is from ...
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Current maximum bandwidth between Mars and Earth?
What is the current maximum bandwidth between Mars and Earth (at their closest), accounting for any satellite/prober/orbiter that is either at Mars or already launched and en route?
So far I've found ...
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Could the crashed Mars Express lander be imaged by the MRO orbiter?
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken direct images of the MSL Curiosity rover, its parachute, heat shield and sky crane. Could it image, or has it even already, the failed Mars Express lander ...
- 27k
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How reliable is HiRISE imagery as a source of knowledge about Mars?
This is a question at the nexus of image interpretation and methodology of planetary science.
How can HiRISE images be used in confirming or refuting hypotheses about the past and present geology of ...
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Why did the HiRISE camera team choose the wavelengths they did?
The HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has 3 color sensors, red (440-850nm), blue-green (400-600nm), and near-infrared (800-1000nm). Why these particular channels? Why not standard ...
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