* Astronomy

The HiRISE Operations Centre (HiROC) at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is responsible for the majority of the ground data system work for the HiRISE instrument. Observation planning, uplink, downlink, data processing, and instrument monitoring are all performed at HiROC. The HiRISE camera is one of six instruments on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which is scheduled to reach Mars on March 10, 2006.

A live HiRISE web log for Mars approach and Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) will begin at the site on March 10, 2006. Check the site for a running commentary on activities at HiROC, which will be updated frequently. HiRISE will obtain some images of Mars after MOI, probably during the week of March 20, which will be unveiled at their Mars Mania II outreach event.
Those images will be placed on their web pages

Weblink:

PRESS RELEASE: NASA'S ORBITER NEARS RED PLANET RENDEZVOUS

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is nearing a crucial milestone. The spacecraft is preparing to slow itself to allow the red planet's gravity to grab it into orbit on March 10.

"Once the spacecraft has successfully been placed in position, this mission will greatly expand our scientific understanding of Mars, pave the way for future robotic missions later in this decade, and help us prepare for sending humans to Mars" - Doug McCuistion, Director of the Mars Exploration Program .

Designed to examine the planet in unprecedented detail, the orbiter will return more data than all previous Mars missions combined. Before the orbiter can begin its mission, it will spend approximately six months adjusting its orbit with an adventurous process called aerobraking.

The initial capture by Martian gravity will put the orbiter into an elongated, 35-hour orbit. The planned orbit for science observations is a low-altitude, nearly circular, two-hour loop. Aerobraking will use hundreds of carefully calculated dips into the upper atmosphere, deep enough to slow the spacecraft by atmospheric drag, but not deep enough to overheat the orbiter, to gain the desired orbit.

"Aerobraking is like a high-wire act in open air. Mars' atmosphere can swell rapidly, so we need to monitor it closely to keep the orbiter at an altitude that is effective and safe" - Jim Graf, orbiter project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, US.

As the orbiter nears Mars, on March 10, ground controllers expect a signal shortly after 21:24 GMT indicating the critical engine burn to place it into low orbit started. The burn will end during a suspenseful 30 minutes, with the orbiter behind Mars and out of radio contact.
The orbiter carries six instruments that will produce data for studying Mars from underground layers to the top of the atmosphere. They include the most powerful telescopic camera ever sent to another planet; it will reveal rocks the size of a small desk. An advanced mineral-mapper will be able to identify water-related deposits in areas as small as a baseball infield. Radar will probe for buried ice and water.
A weather camera will monitor the entire planet daily. An infrared sounder will monitor atmospheric temperatures and the movement of water vapour.

"We're especially interested in water, whether it's ice, liquid or vapour. Learning more about where the water is today and where it was in the past will also guide future studies about whether Mars ever supported life" - Richard Zurek, Jet Propulsion Laboratory orbiter project scientist.

The orbiter can transmit data to Earth at approximately 10 times the rate of any previous Mars mission. It will use a 3-metre diameter dish antenna and a transmitter powered by 31 square metres of solar cells. Scientists will analyse the information to gain a better understanding of changes in Martian atmosphere and the processes that formed and modified the planet's surface.
In addition to its own investigation of Mars, the orbiter will relay information from future missions working on the surface of the planet. During its planned five-year prime mission, it will support the Phoenix Mars Scout being built to land on icy soils near the northern polar ice cap in 2008, and the Mars Science Laboratory, an advanced rover under development for launch in 2009.

-- Edited by Blobrana at 20:40, 2006-02-24

The University of Arizona team turned on the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Friday (Sept. 2).

HiRISE, the largest telescopic camera sent beyond Earth's orbit and five other MRO instruments will inspect the red planet in unprecedented detail and assist future landers. The spacecraft will travel more than four times the distance to Mars before entering Mars' orbit on March 10, 2006.

For the next year, the HiRISE team in Tucson, US, will train new members joining the project, write volumes of new software, image celestial objects to check how their camera operates post-launch, and practice as if their camera already were in orbit. UA Professor Alfred S. McEwen leads HiRISE.

"We're very excited, and we're working very hard" - Eric Eliason, who manages the HiRISE Operations Centre (HiROC) at the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Eliason and the rest of the HiROC team is responsible for most of the ground data system work for the HiRISE camera. Observation planning, uplink, downlink, instrument monitoring, and data processing and analysis will all be done at HiROC, which is located in the UA's C.P. Sonett Space Sciences Building.

"We'll get our first images tomorrow (Sept. 8) as the spacecraft slews Our camera over the moon and then over Omega Centauri. The spacecraft is flying so fast that the moon will already look very small - fewer than 200 pixels across. But we think we're going to get some really pretty pictures of Omega Centauri. And we'll know very quickly how well our instrument is working" - Eric Eliason.

Plans are for HiRISE to make other sets of star observations on Oct. 4 - 5, Nov. 5 and Dec. 13 - 14. The October images will show very precisely how MRO navigation cameras are aligned with HiRISE. The November images will help the HiRISE team fine-tune their camera's focus to get the sharpest images possible. The December images will show how vibrations from different spacecraft instruments may affect HiRISE images.

"These observations will also help us to characterize the optical distortion of our lens, and what processing methods we'll need to correct for whatever distortion we see" - Eric Eliason.

The 65 kg HiRISE camera features a half-meter primary mirror. Developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado, the $40 million HiRISE camera will take ultra-sharp photographs over 6 kilometre swaths of the Martian landscape, resolving rocks and other geologic features as small as one meter across. It will take pictures in stereo and colour while it flies at more than 3.5 km per second (7,800 mph) about 300 km above Mars' surface.

After entering Mars's orbit in March 2006, the MRO will gradually adjust its elliptical orbit to a circular orbit by aerobraking, a technique that creates drag using the friction of careful dips into the planet's upper atmosphere. The spacecraft's 25-month primary science phase begins in November 2006.

The HiROC team expects to process 1,000 gigantic high-resolution images and 9,000 smaller high-resolution images during the science phase of the MRO mission.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched on Aug. 12, has completed one of the first tasks of its seven-month cruise to Mars, a calibration activity for the spacecraft's Mars Colour Imager instrument.

"We have transitioned from launch mode to cruise mode, and the spacecraft continues to perform extremely well" - Dan Johnston, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

The first and largest of four trajectory correction manoeuvres scheduled before the orbiter reaches Mars is planned for Aug. 27.

For the calibration task on Aug. 15, the spacecraft slewed about 15 degrees to scan the camera across the positions of the Earth and Moon, then returned to the attitude it will hold for most of the cruise. Data were properly recorded onboard, down linked to Earth and received by the Mars Colour Imager team at Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, principal investigator for Mars Colour Imager, said the image data are being processed and analysed.

This multiple-waveband camera is the widest-angle instrument of four cameras on the orbiter, designed for imaging all of Mars daily from an altitude of about 300 kilometres.

Imaged at a range of more than 1 million kilometres away, the crescent Earth and Moon fill only a few pixels and are not resolved in the image. However, this is enough useful information to characterize the instrument's response in its seven colour bands, including two ultraviolet channels that will be used to trace ozone in the Mars atmosphere. This is the first of two events early in the cruise phase that check instrument calibrations after launching.

The second will occur in early September when higher resolution cameras are pointed at Earth and the Moon as the spacecraft continues its flight to Mars.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will reach Mars and enter orbit on about March 10, 2006.

After gradually adjusting the shape of its orbit for half a year, it will begin its primary science phase in November 2006.
The mission will examine Mars in unprecedented detail from low orbit, returning several times more data than all previous Mars missions combined. Scientists will use its instruments to gain a better understanding of the history and current distribution of Mars' water. By inspecting possible landing sites and by providing a high-data-rate relay, it will also support future missions that land on Mars.